Sweepr CTO: 'Engagement' and 'containment' critical metrics for digital customer care

The customer care marketing is evolving as broadband service providers and makers of Internet-connected devices look to AI-assisted chatbots and digital platforms to help handle customer problems and relay correct resolutions without forwarding them to call centers with real, live people.

A big challenge in the digital customer care arena is not only to provide a solid, quality experience that can indeed resolve many of the technical issues that customers face day in and day out, but to provide that high level of care across all channels, including voice, the web and mobile apps.

If the digital care capability is high quality and compelling, customers will use it and reuse it, Jim Hannon, chief technology officer of Sweepr, explained on this edition of the Light Reading Podcast.

Sweepr, a relative newcomer in the world of digital customer care based in Dublin, Ireland, is taking aim at the issue with an AI-powered platform designed to work across those multiple channels and get to the root of issues based on the context of the problem and the technical savviness of customers based in part on past interactions with those customers.

After starting out as a "voice-first" platform amid the explosion of smart speakers, the company has since broadened its approach to sit inside customer care mobile apps, websites or chatbot/messenger platforms. The company recently landed an extended series A funding round and signed a multi-year deal with Telus to help "revolutionize" the company's digital customer care capabilities.

Related:Startup Wants to Help ISPs Turn Smart Home Customer Care Into a Profit Center

Hannon said a key learning in the company's process is that "digital engagement" and "digital containment" have emerged as the two key metrics Sweepr is trying to hit. That means the digital care experience has to not only be good enough to get customers to jump in and use it, but also to do a good enough job at solving problems so that the customer does not try to leave to contact the call center.

He said Sweepr is targeting high levels of digital containment – meaning that customers stay in the digital care channel more than 80% of the time.

For a lightly edited transcript, please click the caption button in the video toolbar.

Here are a few topics we discussed: