parkoneer boosts service effectiveness with GenAI

parkoneer boosts service effectiveness with GenAI

Chatbot answers over 70% of first-level support queries

Chatbots are an essential customer touchpoint that can reduce the burden of routine support, boost engagement and enhance satisfaction. By harnessing the power of GenAI, parkoneer slashed its first-level support workload and delivered quality 24/7 support in natural language.

The image shows a close-up of hands using a tablet, with one hand tapping on the screen. The tablet is lying on a surface and the background is slightly blurred, suggesting an interior space. The focus is on the interaction with the tablet.

70-80% of first-level queries answered

Customer support streamlined

Instant 24/7 support

Concise, consistent support that’s aligned to the company brand

parkoneer spared of need for capital investment

A future-proof solution running on Google cloud

Client

Scheidt & Bachmann

The family-owned company Scheidt & Bachmann was founded in 1872 and is currently managed by Dr.-Ing. Norbert Miller, the fifth generation of the family to do so. As a group, Scheidt & Bachmann moves millions of people on all continents every day with its system solutions for intelligent mobility. parkoneer is another building block in the creation of a mobile world and is part of Scheidt & Bachmann Parking Solutions – a global leader in smart parking and a provider of forward-looking parking management solutions for decades. With parkoneer, Scheidt & Bachmann offers a tailor-made solution for access control, management and the dynamisation of private parking spaces.

Challenge

Reduce the complexity of first-level support

A division of Scheidt & Bachmann, parkoneer offers smart parking solutions that identify parking as a source of added value. With flexible working being the norm, companies need to manage parking in real time to offer on-demand parking for employees and visitors. With a parkoneer solution, parking is allocated by availability not assignment.

Although a pioneer in digital parking solutions, parkoneer relied on manual processes for first-level customer support. This was out of line with its brand, carried a risk of errors or inconsistencies, and caused customer inconvenience through waiting time. There was a strong business case for automation – many questions were routine and parkoneer estimated that an GenAI chatbot could answer about 70-80% of first-level queries. An advanced chatbot could also Improve customer satisfaction through 24/7 availability, quick response times and consistent support outcomes.

Scheidt & Bachmann was a customer of Google Cloud and needed an experienced partner to design and build the parkoneer chatbot. With its deep understanding of AI and extensive experience of building chatbots across industries, GFT was asked to build a solution in collaboration with Google Cloud.

“With powerful and easy-to-use AI-based applications, we want to make service and support even more comprehensive and accessible for our partners and customers.”

Stephan Krahwinkel

Head of Marketing and project manager of the AI initiative

parkoneer

Engagement

A GenAI-based chatbot that supports parkoneer customers

The primary aim of the chatbot was to eliminate dependency on user manuals, guides and video tutorials most of which were embedded on the parkoneer customer portal website. Customers need answers to urgent questions while using the parkoneer solution. They don’t have time to consult manuals about software features, settings or options, which often change.

A successful chatbot must provide quick, accurate answers in text, image and video format. To encourage use, the partners integrated the chatbot into the existing customer portal and harnessed the power of GenAI so the model would learn, adapt and improve.

The new chatbot was built using Google Cloud tooling: a Vertex AI LLM, a BigQuery data warehouse, and a Python backend. With this technology stack the model maximizes flexibility and can be easily expanded to meet emerging requirements.

The partners also worked closely to overcome some potential challenges:

Dialogflow, a natural language understanding platform was integrated to reduce the risk of the model “hallucinating”
Business processes were reengineered to ensure better preparation of images needed to cover more questions
The algorithm was adjusted and “fine-tuned” to reduce the frequency of misleading warnings popping up

“We consider AI technologies to be particularly suitable for providing our service partners, customers and their administrators with competent support as quickly as possible.”

Stephan Krahwinkel

Head of Marketing and project manager of the AI initiative

parkoneer

Benefit

Successful PoC chatbot by GFT revolutionizes first-level support for parkoneer, enhancing customer satisfaction and efficiency

GFT built a proof of concept (PoC) chatbot from scratch in just a few weeks. User feedback was universally positive, especially about the availability of multimedia answers in text, video and image. As a natural language model the chatbot proved to be intuitive, fast and engaging to use.

The PoC confirms that GenAI has become mainstream, can provide answers to many business problems and adds value to a company’s brand. The parkoneer chatbot also offers quantifiable business benefits:

Questions answered within 2-3 seconds without searching user manuals and guides
70-80% of first-level support questions covered
24/7 availability improves customer satisfaction
Consistent information delivers a better support outcome

“The PoC, which was created quickly and effectively, proves that GenAI has really come of age and can complement human activity. Now parkoneer support staff are free to focus on our more complex customer queries.”

Daniel Jungbluth

Chief Technology Officer

Scheidt & Bachmann Parking Solutions GmbH

Outlook

Scheidt & Bachmann is working towards the launch of the chatbot for parkoneer service partner. GFT is training Scheidt & Bachmann experts so they can operate, maintain and enhance the implemented chatbot. The service partners are also reviewing the preparation and generation of documents and images to answer an expanding range of questions. Support staff can focus on more complex customer questions that require deeper understanding and research.

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