Solution:
AI Chatbot for Business
Industry:
Restaurants
Chatbot AI for Enhanced Customer Service
The Challenge
Drzewo Wiśni (eng. Cherry Tree) is a unique Japanese restaurant located in the center of Poznan, Poland. The space is designed to not only serve authentic Japanese cuisine, but also reflect the atmosphere of Tokyo, combining tradition with modernity.
Staff faced the challenge of responding quickly to customer inquiries via social media and email. Customers often contact the restaurant outside of business hours and expect quick answers about reservations, menus and other relevant issues. Employees were also unable to respond immediately to questions while they were on the premises, as this would interfere with order processing.
- The goal was to find a solution that would answer customers' questions immediately and at any time.
- It was important to develop a system that would answer questions in a natural and consistent manner, and if a non-standard question was difficult to answer, it would be routed to the restaurant manager.
- It was also critical that the solution could be constantly improved and fed with new knowledge without the help of technicians, such as by adding new items to the menu, information about special promotions, and other changes.
The Solution
- To improve the restaurant's customer service, we decided to implement an AI chatbot to answer most of the recurring questions.
- The first step was to develop a knowledge base and create a mechanism for restaurant employees to manage this knowledge.
- To generate answers to customer questions, we used the Open AI engine, which pulls information from the previously created knowledge base. We implemented the chatbot on Facebook Messenger and Gmail. We plan to implement the AI chatbot in other channels of communication with customers.
- The AI chatbot provides immediate answers to customers, and if it encounters an unusual question, it forwards it to the restaurant manager while informing the questioner.
- The manager can independently refine the chatbot's knowledge repository, based on customer questions, and add new information about promotions, special offers and any other changes in the restaurant.
The Result
What We Learned
The work on this project proved that foodservice customers are extremely sensitive to response times and become irritated when a message arrives hours late. Research shows that even a one-second delay can result in a 7% drop in conversions. AI chatbots are the perfect solution to this problem and a way to build a positive brand image. On the one hand, customer satisfaction increases because they get the information they need quickly. On the other, it frees up restaurant staff to focus on providing even better customer service on-site.