James Tempest
Chatbot Architect, Victoria Plum
How Victoria Plum offers 24/7 support
Victoria Plum at a glance
The customer
An online retailer specializing in bathroom furniture and accessories, as well as providing end-to-end design and installation services.
The market
Victoria Plum has been leading customers across the UK to “little bathroom victories” for 20+ years.
The channels
The support team at Victoria Plum manages chat support volumes of up to 45,000 queries each month.
The situation
Rising support volumes and 85% of customer requests being escalated to an agent.
The solution
A customer-centric chat automation strategy, to maximize efficiency while maintaining Victoria Plum's distinctive CX.
Getting started with Ultimate
Victoria Plum’s CX team had three goals in mind when getting in touch with Ultimate. These were:
- Increasing operational efficiency
- Harnessing AI to handle a greater number of customer queries more quickly
- Maintaining the brand’s distinctive tone of voice while embracing automation
The business’s vision is based on being completely customer-focused, so it was imperative that this evolution was completed while making sure customers did not feel sidetracked under any circumstances.
The Victoria Plum CX team wanted to make sure their virtual agent could hold meaningful conversations with customers. They gravitated towards Ultimate thanks to our supportive team and glowing reviews. Through a watertight onboarding process and a simple deployment process, Ultimate steered Victoria Plum to its very own little automation victory.
AI use case spotlight: managing rising volumes
- When Victoria Plum saw a growing number of support requests, they knew they needed a smart solution to manage these rising volumes in a sustainable way.
- With Ultimate's chat automation solution, every customer is greeted by the virtual agent. This AI-powered triage allows Victoria Plum to easily process higher request volumes.
- Paul Meagher, Chatbot Architect at Victoria Plum commented: “We simply could not have handled our increase in chat volume without the virtual agent.”
AI use case spotlight: fielding FAQs
- Before Victoria Plum started working with Ultimate, 85% of customer requests around damaged items were being escalated to an agent. This left customers waiting and their support team overwhelmed.
- Today, 50% of these replacement requests are fully handled by their AI-powered virtual agent. And Victoria Plum has reach an overall automation rate of 38%.
- With a bot taking care of common queries, only complex requests (those that require agents’ empathy or problem-solving skills) are escalated — driving handling times down and CSAT up.
The success story
Scalable solution
Ultimate's flexible solution allows Victoria Plum to handle support volume spikes and grows alongside their business.
Custom CX
Victoria Plum can incorporate the brand’s distinctive tone of voice into their automated conversation flows.
Increased operation efficiency
With chat automation, customers receive the instant support they expect and agents are freed up for more rewarding tasks.
24/7 support
Having a virtual agent on board means Victoria Plum can support their customers any time of day or night.