Davies Group increases automation success and sales uplift

AI assistant automates 82% of vehicle recovery and boosts hire sales 25% within days of launch

VRG (Vehicle Replacement Group) is part of the Davies Group and offers a convenient vehicle replacement service for insurers, brokers and fleet providers. They had been using a traditional chatbot to arrange the collection of hired vehicles from customers once they had received their own repaired vehicle back. They had reached a plateau in terms of how much of the process they could automate and tasked OpenDialog with making the process more efficient and improving the user experience through our conversational AI platform.

The problem

When arranging the recovery of a courtesy vehicle in order to coordinate successful off-hire, VRG needs information from the policyholder to confirm the vehicle location and that they are ready to hand it back.  For a variety of reasons, including not yet receiving their own vehicle back, not yet receiving a payout for their written-off vehicle, or being unavailable on the collection date, policyholders are often not ready for the vehicle to be collected.   This means that responses from the policyholder can be varied, lengthy, and subjective and were often unable to be automated using VRG’s existing technology. This meant customers would need to be referred to a call-based service centre, which slowed down the process and was not cost-effective.

OpenDialogs solution

OpenDialog developed an AI-powered digital assistant that could be sent to policyholders in place of the existing VRG chatbot, to arrange the collection of the hired vehicle. The solution allows users to use natural language to confirm the vehicle collection or make alternative arrangements. 

In instances where a collection is inconvenient, instead of referring the user to a contact center, the AI assistant can now understand the reasoning and suggest an appropriate alternative. For example, if the policyholder responds by saying, “No, I’ll be at work”, it understands the context and offers a collection from an alternative address or an extension of the hire period. 

Impact

The OpenDialog assistant completely overcomes the limitations of the previous chatbot technology used by VRG, reducing the need for human intervention in both the conversation and decision-making process. By using OpenDialog, Davies Group is now able to automate 82% of all interactions, saving them the cost of two full-time employees. 

In addition, Davies Group now has a much richer dialogue with their customers and can now offer customers the option to pay for extra hire days themselves, which has led to an unexpected benefit, a 25% uplift in sales. 

The improved solution has also sped up the confirmation of vehicle collections, allowing Davies Group to process invoicing with hire partners and customers faster, leading to even further savings and the additional opportunity to increase revenue, by re-hiring vehicles the same day they are collected.

It’s easy to say that OpenDialog’s team is top drawer. I’ve had regular updates from the development and reporting teams, and they’re always looking to the future to make improvements.

Anthony Fletcher
Chief Operating Officer at VRG - Part of the Davies Group