Resources / Customers

Achievers Attains 93% First Contact Resolution with Forethought

About

Changing the Way the World Works

Achievers is an employee voice and recognition solution that builds engagement and sustainable performance in organizations. Achievers leverages the science behind behavior change, so people and organizations can experience sustainable, data-driven business results anywhere in the world. The Achievers platform provides rewards and recognition to employees, and connects them with coffee chats and pulse surveys. 

There are both B2B and B2B2C components to Achievers’ business. On the B2B2C side, end users are supported by a global customer support team, directed by Emily Pearce. Emily’s goals are to provide clients with best-in-class support experiences, while building a scalable support team, and operating efficiently.

We’re focused on creating differentiated member experiences, founded on a sense of belonging. We build strong digital experiences for our clients and agents by constantly innovating in the customer service and HR tech space.

– Emily Pearce, Director of Global Customer Care
Challenges

Manual Processes

Achievers experiences a spike in support inquiries around the busy holiday season. Upon reflection in January, Emily noticed that 22% of support inquiries were requests for password resets. These inquiries were being assigned to agents without any context. 

Prior to Forethought, Achievers used a homegrown chatbot. The bot didn’t have the ability to deflect simple inquiries, causing the queue to be backed up with inquiries that should have been resolved without the need to speak with an agent. 

To provide clients with fast resolution times without increasing headcount, she knew she had to improve the way support tickets were classified and categorized.  

I turned to Forethought for help improving our ticket categorization. After speaking with the team, I was excited to learn that there were more ways I could improve other digital channels through AI, while improving the experience for both our customers and agents.

– Emily Pearce, Director of Global Customer Care
Solution

Deflecting Repetitive Inquiries

Achievers turned to Forethought, the leading generative AI for customer support automation, to implement Solve and Triage. Forethought integrates seamlessly with Salesforce Service Cloud, Achievers’ helpdesk. 

Solve leverages knowledge bases and pre-built workflows to resolve repetitive tickets through an automated widget. 

Solve instantly searches Achievers’ entire database of knowledge articles and previously resolved tickets to provide the most accurate responses to support inquiries, without the intervention of an agent. Support inquiries about password resets, order tracking, and rewards points balances that used to be handled by an agent are now fully handled by the chat widget.

With gap detection, Achievers is able to identify areas where content needs to be created and whether the current articles aren’t working to answer questions.  Achievers also collects CSAT metrics directly within the widget through a pop up that appears to customers after closing the chat window.

Automating Ticket Triage

Triage uses historical data to proactively predict and classify new incoming tickets for Achievers. The Achievers support team leverages existing routing capabilities to prioritize and handle tickets without manually triaging.

Achievers uses Triage to predict the reason the support ticket was submitted, across over 100 languages. The spam detection feature automatically deflects and eliminates spam tickets that would otherwise clog up the support queue. 

It’s great that we’ve been able to create something that agents love. They’re not worried about their jobs going away; they see the AI & automation tools as their teammate so that they can focus on enhancing the experience for our members.

– Emily Pearce, Director of Global Customer Care
Results

Achievers uses both Triage and Solve to improve their customer and agent experiences. When Solve was first launched, their expectation was a 10% deflection rate, with a best case of 30%. Today, they’ve achieved a stellar 44% deflection rate. 

With Forethought, Achievers’ tier 1 support team has reached 93% first contact resolution. Achievers’ engagement score has also increased by 50%. As agents have naturally transitioned to new roles, the support organization hasn’t needed to backfill, reducing the need for 5 support agent headcounts. 

With Triage and Solve, Achievers has reached: 

  • 44% deflection rate
  • 93% first contact resolution
  • 50% increase in engagement score
Future

Looking Ahead

Achievers is excited about the future of customer support automation, particularly with new generative AI technology. The team plans to keep evaluating and implementing new technologies to increase efficiency and automation in their support organization, without sacrificing customer satisfaction.

Initially I thought, ‘If nothing else, we can use Triage, and it’d be great’. What I didn’t realize was that using Solve would also change my world. Now, knowing that Discover is there for me too gets me really excited about the future. We can roll these products out in phases, and as we reach our goals, we can keep reinvesting.

– Emily Pearce, Director of Global Customer Care

Experience the Future of Customer Support

Turn your data into a strategic advantage with our autonomous AI solution.

Say goodbye to traditional chatbots; Forethought delivers smart, scalable support tailored to your unique needs.

Request a demo
Decor Half Circle Orange
Call to action decor Call to action decor