The Challenge

One of the world’s largest professional sports leagues struggled with a disjointed customer support system. Its legacy IVR lacked integration with its CRM, offered no self-service capabilities within the IVR itself, and lacked any personalization in engaging with its loyal fanbase. This led to high chat volumes, long wait times, and poor customer experience.

Our Solution

TTEC and TTEC Digital implemented a multi-faceted solution, deploying two distinct AI technologies to address different customer needs and channels.

We replaced the underperforming IVR with an intelligent voice AI solution from Flip, which leveraged natural language processing to understand caller intent and provide automated assistance. Through an integration with Zendesk, the bot offered basic personalization by recognizing a caller's phone number and greeting them by name if they have a history with the support center. 

For troubleshooting and access issues, the bot provided guided, in-call support using FAQ-based responses, successfully resolving approximately 75% of these inquiries end-to-end. For subscription-related requests, like cancellations, the bot deflected inquiries by sending an SMS with a direct link to the league's self-service help center, empowering customers to manage their accounts independently.

We also leveraged TTEC Digital’s partnership with Google to launch a Google Contact Center Artificial Intelligence chatbot on the league's website. This text-based chatbot was loaded with the company’s most frequently asked questions, allowing fans to find answers and resolve issues quickly through self-service without needing to make a call.

Since human-in-the-loop support is essential, especially when it comes to handling more nuanced interactions that fall outside of automation, TTEC provided a team of 19 associates to manage complex customer needs, ensuring a seamless experience when human support is required.

The Results

The combined impact of the voice AI and chatbot transformed the fan support experience, leading to immediate and measurable improvements:

• Significant reduction in associate-handed cases: With the dual automation strategy deflecting and resolving common inquiries, the number of new cases requiring an associate fell 54% year over year.
• High voice automation rates: The voice AI achieved an overall automation rate of 72%, including automating 76% of troubleshooting calls and 80% of cancellation-related inquiries (via self-service deflection).
• Strong customer adoption: Fans embraced the new technology, demonstrated by a 90% engagement rate with the voice AI, confirming their willingness to interact with AI for faster resolutions.
• Faster self-service resolutions: The Google CCAI chatbot allowed customers to quickly find answers to frequently asked questions, further reducing the need to contact support.