Bots will manage basic attendee queries so you can focus on adding value

The challenge was that event participants have a lot of questions but once they have registered, they rarely spend the time to read emails, review websites or even think about the event until just before it starts. They put the date on their calendar and forget it until just before they are ready to travel to the event. Most often, even the best content simply goes into an email folder, with plans to retrieve it later just when it is needed. But life moves fast, and finding important event details in email folders or remembering a website address, is not always easy. The result is stressed event planners getting inundated with last minute questions from stressed participants trying to find out where to go, when to be there, and what to expect. For luxury car buyers and luxury brands, the expectation for high touch services is a given, and enabling support through any channel the participant wants to interact through is critical.

EventBots’s AI Interaction Design team began working with the client 5 weeks before the event. Basic event details and website were shared in advance of the meeting and the design team was able to interview the client to identify missing event details and conversation topics that participants might ask. The client chose SMS as the conversation channel and all the participant had to do to interact was to simply ask a question about the event, and get an answer, all through regular text. The client named their EventBot, “DriveBot”, and gave it a friendly personality. A working EventBot was delivered prior to the second meeting two weeks later, so the client could explore and provide feedback about it. Working in collaboration, the scope of questions that DriveBot could respond to was increased by 30%, and in the end was trained to handle more than 400,000 questions around 30 topics. DriveBot was launched one week prior to the event and participants learned about the DriveBot through an email and two text messages sent to all registered participants. Individualized drive time reminders were sent to each participant with their specific appointment time and links to details about the car they would be driving. The DriveBot worked 24/7 to respond to any participant request and, as needed, requests for support could be escalated to the event support team for follow-up through text or phone call to the specific customer. 

Results? 53% of attendees engaged with DriveBot. Only 0.3% chose to opt-out of notifications. The most frequently asked questions were about car, location, schedule, directions/parking, support, my appointment, food, wifi, about, shopping tools, lost and found, special needs. Links to the brand’s website and social media were also provided, as well as information about Brand Partner Events that were being held at the same venue.

Every participant conversation was captured and monitored to identify opportunities to improve and train the DriveBot and participants sent and average of 4.2 messages. DriveBot had a 95.1% success rate in responding to participant texts, and only 4.9% of the texts were about topics the DriveBot was not trained to answer or needed help from the event support staff.

If you want to know more about bots and events, you can read the interview to Bob Caldwell of Eventbots here.