How SPORT 24 Makes Customer Service Automation a Business Priority to Improve Their CX

But 2021 was a year of change for them. Making customer service automation a business priority, SPORT 24 worked particularly on improving two areas: self-service and internal processes. They wanted to improve both the customer experience as well as their employee experience. In both cases, the key to increasing efficiency was automation.

To handle the demand fluctuation due to seasonal peaks and free up agents from repetitive requests, SPORT 24 decided to onboard a digital member to their team: SportBot24. The chatbot picks up around 5,667 conversations per month, delivering an answer in just 19 seconds while keeping a high CSAT of 81%. 

With functions such as checking the order and return status, the bot handles the most frequent requests automatically. The chatbot answers customer questions at every stage of their journey: From pre-transactional requests to problems during the buying process as well as after the purchase. On top of that, SPORT 24 uses the insights from the bot to continuously tailor their service offer to their customer needs.

This has helped the team to focus on what matters most and cut down their average response time by 50% to their goal of 24 hours. The chatbot is not a stand-alone tool but integrated with Zendesk to handover conversations seamlessly via tickets or live chat in case human support is needed. A handover via phone is also possible. Due to the preparatory work of the bot as well as mapping the fields within the chatbot and Zendesk, the customer service team has all information at their fingertips to solve the problem.

SPORT 24 had already been using Zendesk as their CRM and for live chat for a couple of years, but wanted to unlock its full potential which is why they reached out to helphouse.io, who are also a trusted consulting partner of Solvemate. The collaboration included assessing their current Zendesk set up and giving recommendations on how to further improve their workflows. 

The chatbot is their first line of defense by funnelling customer requests and used to proactively inform customers about important updates in a timely manner, such as payment issues or delivery delays. Growing their business in Europe is accomplished through both an automation-first and customer-first approach. More growth also means more customers, more service requests and more languages. This can be easily handled with a chatbot, which SPORT 24 did when expanding their business in Norway. Their Norwegian digital colleague went live shortly after the launch of their web shop to help new customers 24/7.