For a better browsing experience and to benefit from all the features of ca-consumerfinance.com, we advise you to use the Edge browser.
  • Text size
  • Contrast
  • 2018/06/11
  • 3 min

Solvemate, the virtual customer support agent

During the international Start & Pulse competition for innovative start-ups run by Crédit Agricole Consumer Finance, CA Consumer Finance’s German subsidiary Creditplus chose Solvemate as their winner - a start-up which is boosting performance in customer service departments.

When they launched their call for projects for the Start & Pulse competition, Creditplus set out five criteria: there needed to be an innovative solution, a viable product and a clear value proposition for both the end customer and Creditplus, they had to have a real business model, and the company had to be less than five years old. 19 start-ups presented projects, of which eight were invited to exhibit during a Pitch Event with Creditplus employees in attendance.

Intelligent QCM

It was Solvemate, a young firm based in Berlin, who won out in the end. Founded in 2015 by Erik Pfannmöller, a former international canoeing champion who describes himself as a “serial entrepreneur”, Solvemate has developed a chatbot which provides faster and more efficient customer service. The chatbot integrates into a website or smartphone app, and asks multiple choice questions which it generates using artificial intelligence (machine learning). “This means it can respond to 75% of the requests formulated by customers in an average of 12 seconds, day and night, 7 days a week,” says Pfannmöller.

Developments are looking promising, especially in the banking, insurance, telecoms and online shopping sectors.

Quick and easy integration

Solvemate launched a work phase at the start of April which is due to end in the next few months, after which the chatbot will be integrated into the Creditplus website. Pfannmöller is keen to emphasise that “since our platform works in ‘Software as a Service’ mode, all we should need is an average of five man-days of work over eight weeks for the solution to be fully operational. And as it is multilingual, we will easily be able to adapt it for CA Consumer Finance’s other subsidiaries…” A real step forward in terms of customer service, which is bringing wait times for answers down to a minimum with constant availability.