As one of New Zealand’s premier tourist destinations, Polynesian Spa gets a large number of customer enquiries every day and the customer service team spent hours each week answering routine questions, and still couldn’t answer everything as quickly as they wanted.
People would get frustrated when their phone enquiries were not answered by the busy customer service team, explains Richard Allen, Sales and Marketing Manager. And although the website included an FAQ section, it wasn’t practical to cater for every single question, and not all website visitors clicked through to it.
Providing a better customer experience, reducing customer frustration and ultimately turning that into increased sales were key goals behind the decision to roll out a chatbot on the Polynesian Spa website. Richard was also keen to free up staff time to focus on enquiries that add more value, rather than answering routine questions.
“Initially I hesitated to try a chatbot because I find some of them annoying. But after hearing results from Yonder chatbots on other tourism websites, the data and outcomes were compelling, so I gave it a go.
“I’ve been amazed at the results. The volume of conversations was more than I expected.”
Not only has the Yonder chatbot helped facilitate hundreds of bookings since it’s implementation in November 2019, Polynesian Spa has been able to quantify the return on investment as well, explains Richard.
“We measure click throughs to the booking system from the bot and the conversion rate on the website has gone up since implementing Yonder.”
Answered-by-the-bot rates hover around 85% for Polynesian Spa
The ability to measure the number of bookings facilitated by Yonder has been enhanced with the recent release of a feature which provides event data to Google Analytics to accurately track conversions.
The payback period wasn’t long either, and Polynesian Spa has seen excellent results from day one.
“Yonder came with a predefined set of questions relevant to our business, and we added some extras. That has enabled us to get great outcomes immediately. We have refined the responses since implementation of the chatbot, and now there is minimal human intervention. Yonder answers most questions to the customer’s satisfaction,” says Richard.
Answered-by-the-bot rates hover around 85% for Polynesian Spa, and this represents a significant time saving for the customer service team.
“If customers can easily find what they want, it helps avoid them leaving the website without booking.”
Implementing the Yonder chatbot was cheaper than hiring more staff, more engaging than the FAQ section and more immediate than an email or phone response, so was a win-win for both the Polynesian Spa team and their customers.
“The chatbot is an option for customers to find info without having to pick up the phone. Having info at their fingertips without scrolling through every page on the website is really valuable.
“If customers can find what they want, it helps avoid them leaving the website without booking. Securing that conversion prior to being in Rotorua is really important,” explains Richard.
Yonder’s comprehensive built-in analytics package has provided insights that are a rich source of business intelligence for the Polynesian Spa marketing team.
Analysis of questions asked was easy to do and helped provide evidence to support some investment decisions that were being considered at the time, says Richard.
“The conversational data provided evidence I wouldn’t otherwise have, and helps my decision making.”
The customer conversational data is also helping refine website information.
Nestled on the shores of Lake Rotorua lies Polynesian Spa, one of New Zealand’s premier tourist destinations. Recognised as one of the top 10 spas in the world, Polynesian spa’s geothermal baths and retreat uses Rotorua’s healing waters and decadent therapies to pamper its guests.
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