Press Release

You pose a question. Sophie knows the answer.

Door: Nicole C. Bitter

The telecommunication discounter congstar advertises with the slogan “You want it. You’ll get it.” and guarantees closeness to customer requirements by taking customer advisory service to the next level.

November 29, 2011

As from now, customers of congstar are better off because they have Sophie. Whoever visits the company’s website and clicks on Help&Support will not be alone with his concerns any longer. The virtual assistant Sophie, who has been developed by The Selfservice Company, introduces herself by saying “Hi, I’m Sophie, your virtual assistant at congstar. Do you have a question? I’m pleased to help you.”, and then she patiently awaits the customers’ questions.

Whenever customers are in need of information about their mobile phone packages, prepaid products, tariff changes, their fixed network, DSL, or any mobile phone and router settings, they should not hesitate to type their questions, and, automatically, Sophie knows what to do. She is able to identify questions about all relevant issues, she refers to links and proper product sites, or she simply answers herself.

Having implemented The Selfservice Company’s virtual assistant, congstar has backed the right horse, which is underlined by customers’ intensive usage of Sophie. On average, Sophie is asked 1.600 questions every day, and she keeps on learning daily in order to improve and meet the users’ subjects better and better. What is more, she satisfies the customers with additional extras that are extremely user-friendly. Thus, her ability to communicate about central issues increases gradually with respect to the actual input by users. She lists relevant FAQs that match the context and asks about customer satisfaction with the help of a feedback function (the user is asked whether the answer given was helpful or not and he may give comments if it was not helpful).

Currently, Sophie can only be found on the subpage Help&Support. However, as soon as the user conduct is evaluated, Sophie’s integration into other subpages will be checked.

It is The Selfservice Company which is responsible for the technical implementation of the innovative virtual assistant. The Selfservice Company sets a high standard in the range of online customer contact. Its core business is the development, implementation and the successive improvement of customer-friendly self services with respect to all web-based communication channels. Due to the application of their own dialog manager technology, about 100 million customer concerns are answered each year, and they are processed with a hit ratio of 90 percent.

Moreover, on customer request the virtual assistant can be connected to the live chat. In accordance with certain business rules, the virtual assistant knows when to turn over an ongoing dialog to the service center, checks whether any call center agent is available to chat and then turns over to him. The content of the previous dialog is transferred to the service center such that customers do not need to tell their requests again and again. A connection to relevant entries in forums is one of the many other features that a virtual assistant like Sophie has to offer.

The Selfservice Company is a fast growing company with its head office located in the Netherlands and branch offices in Germany and the U.K. The Selfservice Company has been declared one of the “Cool Vendors” by the renowned IT-market research institution Gartner, which shows that there is no way around The Selfservice Company when it comes to customer service.

The Selfservice Company’s notable customers include UNICEF, Sky, Otto, Toys”R”Us, Reader’s Digest, Rabobank, Wehkamp and Staples.

For further information, please visit www.selfservicecompany.de.

Media contact The Selfservice Company:
Zielgruppe.net GmbH
Nicole C. Bitter
pr@selfservicecompany.de
Phone +49 (0) 2102 - 77099 -29