Bischof Automaten is a leading vending machine retailer operating in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. With locations in Hohenems (Vorarlberg) and Vienna, the company manages thousands of vending machines and places great value on personal service and technical support.
“I advise other companies to start out simply and gradually train the AI. The more product-specific data you make available to AI, the more effectively it works. For us, fonio is a tool to offer a cost-effective and high-quality service despite the variety of over 30 different types of machines.”
Before the introduction of fonio, Bishop Automaten was faced with the challenge of creating a permanent availability for customers who often report technical problems at unusual times (weekends, nights).
For a long time, the company worked together with an external call center .
The service was with high costs for staff connected on weekends and holidays. In addition, the added value was often limited to addressing customer concerns so that a recall could be made later.
The solution: fonio AI telephone assistant
The AI assistant, the internal “Michael” , is now responsible for initial telephone communication.
Implementation and training:
- The company pursued an iterative approach: You simply started by querying callback requests and gradually expanded the assistant's capabilities.
- To transfer knowledge, around 45 PDFs with user manuals as well as phone lists were uploaded.
- By storing names, the AI now recognizes specific contacts, such as the seller Mr. Schnetzer, much more reliably.
The use of Fonio has led to significant improvements in Operational process guided:
- 24/7 availability: Customers can call anytime, and all calls are recorded, even if someone immediately hangs up again.
- Efficient department allocation: Requests are automatically categorized. Prospective buyers end up directly in the sales department (depending on the region in Vienna or Germany), while technical problems are immediately reported by email to the right technical department.
- Better employee preparation: Technicians receive the transcribed problem in advance and can call the customer back with a solution.
- Cost savings: According to Andreas Bischof, the AI solution is significantly cheaper compared to a call center while at the same time offering higher added value.
