Salzburg AG Automates Customer Communication With Cognigy.AI

The smart voice- and chatbot, LEA, is an important pillar of customer service and sales at Salzburg AG. The electronic assistant has recently started advising customers on energy issues by voice on Alexa and Google Assistant.

SAN FRANCISCO, DÜSSELDORF, 26.02.2021 – Cognigy supports Salzburg AG with its conversational AI platform, Cognigy.AI, in the automation of customer service and sales. Salzburg AG, an Austrian company that supplies customers in the areas of energy, mobility and communication, developed their Learning Electronic Assistant (LEA) utilizing the power of Cognigy.AI. The LEA answers questions from customers about the entire product range and over 270 subjects 24/7. Whether inquiries about products or services, changes such as moving in or moving out, or with problems of any other kind – LEA not only has answers but can also help ordering products. In the case of special inquiries, LEA passes the conversation over to a personal service employee as a live chat.

More time for the customer and 24/7 problem solving

The use of Cognigy.AI has led to a reduction in common inquiries at Salzburg AG, allowing more time for higher quality dialogues. LEA is smart and can automatically assign inquiries with the customer number directly to the customer. LEA is not a silo solution, but an integral part of the business processes of Salzburg AG.

The LEA dialogues can be easily adapted by the content specialists at Salzburg using the intuitive graphical Cognigy editor and expanded to include new products or topics. New offers or information can easily be added. Salzburg AG can also set up agile ad-hoc communication on current topics that affect many customers at the same time (such as in the event of changes in the law or tariffs or special promotions).

Strong sales support

Cognigy.AI is also used for automated sales processes: during the Corona lockdown, for example, a flood of orders for Internet product upgrades were processed fully automated via the LEA chatbot. Analyses of the voice- and chatbot dialogues conducted by Cognigy.AI provide the Salzburg team with insights into topics and services that are of particular interest to customers. Campaigns and communications can be controlled more effectively with those insights.

Now also with Alexa and Google Assistant

LEA was launched in a first basic version in 2019 and has since been expanded as a central element of customer communication – most recently as a voice-based energy advisor for the Alexa and Google Assistant channels (in the German speaking market only). The Cognigy.AI-based solution uses voice dialogue to help reduce energy consumption in the household and make consumption behavior more environmentally friendly. If increased consumption is identified, LEA tries to find the cause together with the customer. Through questions from LEA, the causes can be found and remedied. The Salzburg team is already planning further useful applications for LEA as a language assistant.

Sarah Haider, Customer Experience Specialist, Salzburg AG, says: “We support our customers with an enormous range of products and services – a lot of them require explanation. With Cognigy.AI and our LEA, we can answer simple, repetitive questions, but also many special concerns of our customers digitally and automatically. Our employees in the contact center have more time for individual, quality discussions without having to wait. We are also increasingly using LEA for our sales success and using the insights that Cognigy.AI provides us. As an enterprise platform, Cognigy.AI keeps what it promises: non-IT people can develop a functioning chatbot in minutes. The language understanding and the training ability of the AI ​​are excellent. Cognigy ensures GDPR-compliant data protection and we can easily expand the solution to other channels or topics. In the future, Cognigy.AI will play an even stronger sales role and should go hand in hand with e-commerce."