When we talk about customer service, what comes to your mind? Rows of tables operated by agents to answer customers’ questions and complaints, followed by a constant ringing sound from the telephone? That was, and still is, the reality of this sector. Despite its complexity, customer service continues to play an essential role in an organization’s success. Why so?
Customer service allows businesses to connect with their customers directly. According to Hubspot research in 2022, adequate customer service can help cover customer acquisition costs, strengthen customer relations, and bring various benefits ranging from financial, marketing, and corporate image. Awareness of the importance of customer service is projected to continue increasing with the ever-growing importance for businesses to bring about a seamless customer experience to increase customer satisfaction.
The pandemic has pushed Indonesian companies to accelerate the digitization of customer service. It doesn’t stop there. Growing businesses also need to listen more to their customers to ensure customer satisfaction throughout their journey. Botika, Microsoft’s startup partner from Yogyakarta, has created a technology solution to answer this need. Armed with its mission to assist businesses in maximizing their customer service, regardless of the line of business, Botika helps organizations reorganize their customer service system; enabling customer service agents to work more effectively, efficiently, and strategically.
“Before Botika became what it is today, we were a technopreneur who offered online airline booking services. However, even though the service was online-based, our customers still longed for interactions with human agents. This burdens the company’s operational costs because many aspects of expenditure must be invested. Therefore, we decided to automate the process. That’s not to say we’re eliminating human agents because human interaction is critical to personalize customer service and experience. Still, we ensure that our agents only answer complex questions that technology hasn’t been able to help answer. Thus, agents can use their time more effectively for customer retention,” recalled Ditto Anindita, Founder and CEO of Botika.
When artificial intelligence (AI) technology was at its peak, Botika started using AI to develop Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) in local languages, enabling businesses to efficiently serve a more extensive customer base, reduce their expenses, and simultaneously improve their service level.
To put it simply, NLP is a part of AI where a computer system is trained to understand words in the form of text or speech like humans. This step is a breakthrough because Botika has succeeded in providing a solution to a problem that has not been done by its global competitors, which is to develop NLP for Indonesian, complete with everyday language and abbreviations that only native speakers understand. This technology that utilizes Microsoft Azure is presented in the form of chatbots and voice bots with text-to-speech and speech-to-text capabilities, WhatsApp Business API, and omnichannel solutions—integrating more than one social media channel for interaction with customers, thus creating a seamless and impressive customer experience.
“The news that we have successfully developed an NLP for Indonesian spread like wildfire. We started getting calls from large companies asking if we could help them build similar technology for their customer service. That was when we realized that many other companies had the same problem. So, we seized the opportunity and turned it into what we do. The technology created for our personal online airline booking service has now turned into our main offering,” said Ditto.
Since its establishment in 2017, the average growth of Botika, a technology startup from Yogyakarta, has tripled, indirectly driven by the pandemic. They now serve 14 languages, including Indonesian, English, Chinese, Thai, and Korean. All 14 languages are available in Botika’s 3 main categories of solutions—chatbot, voice bot, and omnichannel. These three categories are seamlessly integrated, ensuring the smooth running of operations and consistent support across channels that culminate in outstanding customer service performance.
More often than not, Botika’s chatbot is also used to manage the company’s internal communications, especially in the human resources (HR) and information technology (IT) divisions. This is due to the increasing difficulty in responding to employees’ questions quickly and accurately for the related teams, especially with the skyrocketing number of employees. Here, not only does the chatbot facilitate communication between employees, but it also helps companies increase the availability of information for their employees, reduce workload, and save costs while maintaining employee engagement. With the presence of IT and HR chatbots, employees can, for example, receive answers to technical questions about IT, onboarding, leave allowances, and others directly without having to go through a long and time-consuming queue process. Integrating the Botika chatbot with Microsoft Teams, built with Microsoft in just one month, also makes it easier for companies to present a seamless communication process with their employees.
Now, Botika serves more than 100 clients in Indonesia and abroad in various sectors such as the financial industry, health, education, cellular operators, mass media, and government. Several institutions that have benefited from Botika’s services include Bank Indonesia, BRI Insurance, MRT Jakarta, Danone-AQUA, HM Sampoerna, the Immigration Office of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, XL Axiata, UNAIDS, and many more.
Rooted in the belief that market leadership will only be achieved after businesses—regardless of how big they are—can maintain customer loyalty, Botika also offers its services to local MSMEs. For Botika, digitization is a must for MSMEs, as they usually have limited capital and human resources to manage their growing businesses. Thus, Botika supports local MSMEs to go digital by offering the lite version of Omnibotika, which also runs on Microsoft Azure. This platform allows MSMEs to expand the buyer market on various social media and marketplaces without switching platforms, view conversation analytics, and simultaneously send broadcast product offers to thousands of customers.
“Among our top 3 solutions, chatbots are the most widely used, and we see our customers saving between 30-40% on their customer service costs after automating the process. To complement their customer service, companies also use our omnichannel solution. This solution helps companies to integrate all their communication channels, from social media, website, and SMS, into one platform, making customer service much easier. For MSMEs, we also equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to go digital, and we remain committed to supporting them to thrive in this digital era,” added Ditto. Their one-dashboard omnichannel system also brought home a bronze medal at the ASEAN ICT Awards in 2021 for Botika.
This award is just one of many that Botika seeks to attain. Botika is part of Microsoft’s partner ecosystem and gets 24/7 technology support, event support, and market assistance that makes customer service more accessible to everyone. “The migration to Azure went smoothly; our operations didn’t stop at all during the process. We can easily access permissions and controls and immediately enjoy the integrated ecosystem. We feel extremely empowered through the technology infrastructure and business development-related stuff supported by Microsoft. We look forward to continuing to empower our clients by further expanding our services in the long term,” concluded Ditto.
Microsoft remains committed to #BerdayakanSolusiDigitalIndonesia like Botika and many other local startups, as part of the main initiative SATU Karya aimed at #BerdayakanIndonesia. Learn more here.
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