The Cog Case Study
Using a chatbot to welcome and support customers
The Mount Washington Cog Railway, affectionately known as “The Cog”, is the World’s First Mountain Climbing Cog Railway. Situated amidst the breathtaking landscapes of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, this railway is a true testament to human engineering and adventure.
With a rich history dating back to its inception in 1869, the Cog holds the distinction of being the premier New England attraction that takes you on an unforgettable journey to the peak of Mount Washington.
The Challenge:
Resolve customer inquiries in a timely manner
The demand for the Cog Railway tickets is sky-high, and the Cog team has its hands full of inquiries from people who’d like to visit the Cog. Mr. Rob Arey, Director of Marketing, is responsible for the overall marketing and customer satisfaction, from promoting the Cog Railway trips to managing communication channels and making sure the customers have a great experience.
One of the major challenges Mr. Arey was facing was the lack of human support resources to respond to customer inquiries in a timely manner. The Cog team receives many email and phone call inquiries every day, but the customer support team doesn’t have the capacity to respond to every inquiry on time. Especially when phone calls come in after hours, they often remain unanswered.
When Mr. Arey and his team members saw their email and phone call backlog, they realized they needed an automated service that could help them respond to inquiries in real-time and provide the information their customers need instantly. As a popular tourist destination, it was of utmost importance to provide stellar and user-friendly customer support that fits the Cog brand and to maintain as much of a personal feeling as possible.
The Solution:
24/7 non-stop support with AskHandle
To address this challenge, Mr. Arey turned to AskHandle for its AI-powered chatbot solution. The AskHandle team helped Mr. Arey launch a customized AskHandle chatbot with a specific knowledge base relating to the Cog services, enabling the Cog to address customer inquiries in real-time. AskHandle became a 24/7 non-stop customer support solution for the Cog website.
The Cog received a fully configured AI chatbot, where the AskHandle team had already set up every component, including the creation and training of customer intents. This allowed the Cog team to easily input information for individual customer intents without the need for any extra AI training or development. The Cog team simply provided the information they’d like the chatbot to respond to in a Word document, and the chatbot was ready to support the Cog customers.
Even though more than 80% of the customer inquiries fall between 15-20 customer intents, the Cog continues to receive new customer inquiries. So, AskHandle chatbot keeps training and enhancing its knowledge base. When the chatbot doesn’t know the answer to a customer inquiry, it will provide a “contact us” message and mark the inquiry, waiting for Mr. Arey to provide the best corresponding information to that specific customer intent. Once the information is provided, AskHandle chatbot will add this new customer intent to its knowledge base. The next time a customer triggers this intent, AskHandle chatbot will provide the corresponding information.
The Result:
Customers instantly receive the information they need with AskHandle Chatbot
AskHandle Chatbot has become the first option for customer support on the Cog website, encompassing multiple topics, ranging from ticket purchases and train schedules during holidays to whether there is food service on the train and the weather forecast. More importantly, every customer receives an instant response and the information they need in a very user-friendly way, and there is no longer a customer inquiry backlog that the Cog team needs to resolve.
AskHandle Chatbot has been great at answering customer questions,” said Mr. Arey.
The Cog now directs all website traffic to AskHandle Chatbot for customer service. While the phone number and email address are still available, customers prefer to use AskHandle Chatbot for their inquiries, and the chatbot continues to learn from each new conversation. Moreover, it warmly welcomes new visitors to experience the wonders that the Cog Railway has to offer.
Embrace the future of customer support
