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85% of Internet users in Germany use WhatsApp on a daily basis. We’ll explore how Vodafone Germany enhanced its customer service process through WhatsApp Business.

Vodafone Group is a British multinational telecommunications conglomerate, with headquarters in London and Newbury, Berkshire. Moreover, It predominantly operates services in the regions of Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.

Vodafone Germany is the number one telecommunications provider in Germany. They offer fixed broadband, mobile communications, Internet and TV services. They receives more than 30 million calls from customers every year. Vodafone Germany has 6.8 million fixed-line customers, 7.6 million TV customers and more than 47 million SIM cards in use.

PROBLEM

Vodafone Germany had a challenge, which was to make its call center more efficient and provide better customer service. Instead of using multiple channels to connect with customers, WhatsApp Business came into play and was integrated to give customers the option of communicating through a single messaging channel.

SOLUTION

Most of Germans (85%) use WhatsApp on a daily basis. Which constitutes a convenient opportunity. Employing the WhatsApp Business API, Vodafone Germany looked to get higher customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores and enhance its customer service process by offering a single communication channel.

• Vodafone Germany integrated the WhatsApp Business API with the help of a technical solution provider.
• Once the API was ready, Vodafone customers had the option to switch to WhatsApp from currently used communication channels, e.g. interactive voice response phone systems (IVR), website or email.
• Interacting with the IVR phone system, people heard the prompt “Solve your inquiry with us over WhatsApp”, which allowed them to manage their issues at the time that suited them, via WhatsApp.
• Vodafone’s virtual agent TOBi helped handle account queries on WhatsApp by asking customers a series of initial questions before transferring them to a live service representative.
• Once the conversation was completed, Vodafone used software to send customers a survey to gather feedback about their entire experience.

RESULT

Vodafone Germany integrated the WhatsApp Business API on November 14, 2018 to streamline customer communications, and achieved the following results:

• More than 350,000 customers served through WhatsApp Business over 5 months
• 700,000 WhatsApp conversations over 5 months
• 62% of customer conversations occurred via WhatsApp over 2 days
• 45% higher opt-in rate for WhatsApp over 2 days, compared to SMS