Sergey Kopov, Sunday Games

How to Answer a Million Questions? Using Chatbots to Reduce Churn Rate and Support Costs

(White Nights Conference Moscow 2017)
The official conference website — http://wnconf.com

Transcript

1. How to Answer a Million Questions? Using Chatbots to Reduce Churn Rate and Support Costs
2. Name Sergey Kopov Experience 11 years of product management 3 years of c# development 50+ successfully completed apps/games Now Founder at Sunday Games Founder at Ingame Advisor Before Head of Publishing at HeroCraft Producer at Zillion Whales Product manager at i-Free Product manager at FunCorp (Flysoft) Contact facebook.com/sergey.kopov
3. Problem Any game has bugs. Having met a bug, a player might ignore it, report to a developer or leave a game. If a player wants to report the issue he usually asks for some help (probably there is a temporary workaround). The more difficult the game the more questions a player has about its rules. How can I complete a level? Where can I find an object? Which strategy should I choose? The more players the much time/ money a developer has to spend for such kind of communications.
4. Email is the most popular way for communication between players and developer. Forms can be used for creating more structured requests. Special software (like Zendesk) can be used for request processing systematization. That approach is time consuming for a developer. Moreover not every user met an issue will report about it. Sending a bug report needs time for creation, waiting for developer’s reply and answering additional questions. Quite often it is easier for player to stop playing and try something new. Old Solution
5. We have found a more effective solution - chatbot usage for a primary communication with a player. The chatbot introduces itself like one of game’s characters. A player can ask him any question with a voice or just typing it. When the chatbot is unable to answer the question it helps to create a request for classic support to minimize a number of clarifying questions. That approach allows giving fast answers for 90% of player’s questions, that significantly reduces the load of support team. Moreover it improves user experience, as asking a question in a chat is usually easier than writing an email or filling in the form. Advisor Solution
6. How It Works?
7. Seek the Meaning Request Where can I have dinner today? Patterns * weather * $time * * dinner * * (dinner | lunch | eat*) * $time * Consider the Context Requests What is the weather in Moscow? What about Limassol?
8. 1) Develop everything by yourself 2) Use third-party platform 3) Delegate all work to an agency How to Implement?
9. Client support Chatbots can answer questions and perform standard actions switching to a support manager in some specific cases Marketing Chatbots can work on cold sales gathering preliminary information from a potential client and then pass him hot to a sales manager Operator’s Tool Analyzing a communication ad-hoc, chatbot can assist Operator with showing possible answers or displaying necessary data to solve the problem Application Alternative Chatbots Application Sphere
10. READY SET CAT 1) Number of emails decreased by 92% 2) Number of player questions, comparing with the number of emails received before chatbot introduction, increased by 32 times 3) Retention 1 7 30 increased by 5% 2% 0.5% 4) No negative reviews added
11. Our Clients
12. ZooCraft 9m questions (July - October) 1.5-2.5 question per user
13. Questions to ZooCraft Chatbot
14. 1. Supplement the answer with a picture 2. Suggest questions 3. Use personal data 4. Play character’s role, imagine short legend 5. Do not deviate from the topic too far 6. Automate as much as possible 7. Make your answers sound informatively even without the question 8. Do not ask things that the bot is able to know by itself Best Practices
15. Questions?