For more than 20 years, City Wonders has been offering insightful and entertaining guided tours of Europe’s iconic cities. Passionate about giving travellers incredible, memorable experiences, City Wonders provides a range of specialised tour options, including skip-the-line access to famous landmarks, small-group walking tours and visits to lesser-known sights. They have thousands of 5-star reviews and recognition as the No.1 Experience Worldwide by TripAdvisor!
Digital Transformation
In 2016, City Wonders engaged with IT Solutions to provide live chat on their websites: CityWonders.com and DarkRome.com. We guided the technical implementation and trained the agents. The project was an immediate success with an excellent conversion rate over the chat. Together we looked for more opportunities for digital engagement and added WhatsApp into the confirmation emails and tour vouchers.
Challenges
And then, along came the pandemic. With travel restrictions and safety measures in place, City Wonders had to cancel or postpone its tours and significantly reduce its workforce. The company adapted by shifting its focus to future planning and preparing for a time when it could safely resume its in-person tours. During the various lockdowns, they upgraded many of their IT systems and processes, accelerating their digital transformation plans. This included a conversational chatbot to provide a great customer service experience 24/7.
Meet Cindy
In collaboration with the Customer Service Management team, IT Solutions developed, deployed and maintains a chatbot to address simple repetitive queries. Cindy, the City Wonders virtual assistant, guides travellers to find accurate answers to frequently asked questions. The assistant will also escalate the more difficult enquires to a City Wonders team member.
Recovery
City Wonders’ business gradually re-opened during 2021-2022 but with limited staff available to cover the chat channel, Cindy remains in place answering customers with useful accurate information and escalating where necessary. With IT Solutions’ assistance, City Wonders has recently added Facebook and Instagram to its social channels to extend its presence in those applications.
Outcome
Cindy is able to contain up to 75% of customer queries. This has resulted in many satisfied customers and a significant reduction in cost-to-serve. City Wonders has great plans for Cindy going forward with lots more exciting sales and customer service use cases in the pipeline.
City Wonders web messaging deployment
