A blog post from Klarna, a Buy Now, Pay Later fintech company, started making the rounds in the collection industry last week, and has been turning a lot of heads. The company rolled out a virtual assistant in February, which is powered by OpenAI — the company behind ChatGPT — and shared some data about how it’s been going so far. As the company says, the numbers speak for themselves.
- The AI assistant has had 2.3 million conversations, two-thirds of Klarna’s customer service chats
- It is doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents
- It is on par with human agents in regard to customer satisfaction score
- It is more accurate in errand resolution, leading to a 25% drop in repeat inquiries
- Customers now resolve their errands in less than two minutes compared to 11 minutess previously
- It’s available in 23 markets, 24/7 and communicates in more than 35 languages
- It’s estimated to drive a $40 million USD in profit improvement to Klarna in 2024
For anyone wondering about the value and benefits that can be had by harnessing artificial intelligence and putting the technology to work for you, these data points should bring the picture into focus. Granted, Klarna has 150 million customers worldwide and they are using the virtual assistant in the company’s app, but offering them the ability to get information 24/7 without having to talk to a human — unless they want to — is something that just about everybody is looking for today.
Consider this thought exercise. What are the 20 most common questions that your agents receive from consumers? How much time do they spend daily, weekly, or monthly answering those questions? That’s how much time could be freed up if you programmed a virtual agent to answer those questions instead. That is more time on the phone trying to collect instead of answering questions.
“This AI breakthrough in customer interaction means superior experiences for our customers at better prices, more interesting challenges for our employees, and better returns for our investors.” said Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna.
