VIA increases customer retention by digitizing the customer service operation.

The Case

The pandemic period, which began in 2020, led companies of all sizes and segments to review their customer experience processes. Suddenly, digital service became even more important and sought after. For VIA, the holding company of some of Brazil’s leading retail brands such as Casas Bahia, Ponto Frio, and Extra.com.br, this was no different.

At the time, the significant increase in digital service requests prompted the company to seek new ways to innovate and further digitalize the customer journey. One of the main solutions was to use Zenvia to implement chatbots on contact channels.

“We had a scenario of chaos, which was the pandemic, where our service volumes tripled, and we didn’t have enough automation to meet this demand. It was at that moment that we saw that we needed a solution, a more assertive preventive communication, and the bot also entered this scenario because our service was more by phone,” explained Fabricia Ruiz Braga, Customer Service Project Manager at VIA.

Along with this, with the help of Zenvia, VIA redesigned its entire customer journey and began to enable problems to be resolved preventively, already providing as much information as possible from the first automated contact.

“The customer who called already had a problem. Today, we can warn about a strike, a problem, a need to extend a delivery date,” says Fabricia.

The result of this was a drastic change in VIA’s and its brands’ customer experience, which can be seen in satisfaction surveys.

“Today, 50% of our volume is digital. We managed to move from a very chaotic scenario to changing the customer experience. When we conduct a satisfaction survey with our consumers, we realize that those who are served by digital channels bring a score 28% higher than those served by ‘humans.’ It was a very cool experience and brought great satisfaction,” says the manager.

The Role of Zenvia

Currently, what emerged as a great need brought by the pandemic has become a great gain for VIA and its customers. By using Zenvia, the holding company recorded improvements of over 27% in customer retention through the chatbot.

This is also due, according to Fabrícia, to the elimination of friction points and time loss by the customer on the company’s channels.

“Zenvia helped us precisely in this construction. We had a pain point in understanding what was the best channel for the customer, what was the best way to communicate, what were the most sought-after journeys, how to automate the main doubts. For example: ‘what is my delivery date?’ the bot can answer that for the customer. So, Zenvia has helped us a lot to streamline, personalize, and offer a better experience for the customer.”