PCNA Improves Chat Abandonment by 80% With 24/7 Automated Support

Improvement in

chat abandonment

Reduction in

live agent chat

Background

Polyconcept, the parent company of PCNA, has been a trusted leader in the promotional products industry for nearly five decades. Boasting a global presence with 30 offices across three continents, PCNA generates an annual revenue of nearly $1 billion. Their extensive product range encompasses a wide array of items, including drinkware, pens, notebooks, bags and backpacks, hoodies, shirts, power banks, chargers, and more. PCNA's commitment to excellence is further evident through their state-of-the-art decorating, eco initiatives, and support services, ensuring top-notch quality for their customers.

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Brennen Volbeda 

Director Digital Experience & Strategy

PCNA

By implementing Linc chat to handle questions and answers around products, orders and services, we’ve been able to decrease our agent chat interactions. Linc has been vital for this success by how they handle implementation, ongoing support, and feature improvements.

Challenge

As PCNA continued to experience exponential growth and an increasing demand for their products, they recognized the need to automate and digitize their customer communication and care strategies.

PCNA lacked 24/7 support and had limited automation capabilities to resolve complex business issues, which led to escalating customer service costs that was only compounded by a diverse global team across multiple channels including phone, email and chat.

Rising expenses, a surge in customer service inquiries, and disjointed workflows prompted PCNA to seek a unified approach that would optimize the customer experience. Additionally, with the anticipation of significant growth due to the resurgence of in-person events and conferences, PCNA faced the challenge of expanding their contact center operations and efficiently training new agents while navigating a tight labor market.

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Brennen Volbeda 

Director Digital Experience & Strategy

PCNA

Approach

Why Linc’s AI Chat Solution Stood Out

After extensive research on customer service automation solutions, PCNA found their ideal partner in Linc. While other vendors offered stock responses, PCNA required resolutions to intricate use cases. Linc excelled in this aspect by eliminating the need for costly static workflows and providing easily customizable responses and resolutions through its pre-built expert digital workers, without the need for complex dialog flow scripting. Linc's partnership philosophy and expertise in tackling end-to-end multi-channel challenges made them the ideal collaborator for PCNA's digital transformation journey.

Unleashing the Power of AI Chat & Automation for PCNA’s Omnichannel Strategy

Linc's automation capabilities extend to various channels including webchat, SMS text, social networks, support solutions, and email, ensuring automated resolutions for a range of issues.

Some notable customer service automations include:

Consultative selling
Quote request automation
Promotion issue support
Order status/issue, return/exchange support
Physical store/distribution center support
Answering complex product questions

Furthermore, Linc's analytics capabilities provided valuable insights into trends and use cases, enabling ongoing enhancements to the customer experience. By implementing agent pre-assistance, PCNA reduced the time required to handle inquiries.

PCNA

Results

As a result of the Linc partnership, PCNA has seen a 48% reduction in live chat (based on Jan-May 2022 statistics, compared to same months in 2023, adjusted for site traffic). This decrease has enabled PCNA to effectively reduce costs and remove burden from its live agents through automated chat responses.

With the implementation of Linc’s conversational AI chat, PCNA has also seen an 80% improvement in chat abandonment, which is a testament to the quality of chat support given to customers. Linc’s AI engine is trained on hundreds of industry-specific resolution services which enable its automated chat capabilities to offer personalized, accurate support, resolving customer issues swiftly.

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PCNA Use Cases

24/7 Automated Chat

PCNA leverages conversational AI chat that serves as a first responder for pre-purchase, post-purchase, and retention inquiries across a variety of chat channels.

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Product Search w/ Real Time Inventory Checking

PCNA customers could effortlessly find products using single comprehensive utterances. Linc’s AI-driven search understanding factored in inventory quantity for specific dates, specific product parameters such as price range, size, color, and material.

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Order Status Lookup

Checking order status was made simple by allowing users to inquire about all orders or provide specific identifiers such as order ID, purchase order ID, or sales order ID.

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Complex Product Question & Answering

Linc's AI capabilities enabled PCNA to address complex and sophisticated product questions, such as determining the size and placement of logos, and other product customization questions during pre-sales. Any inquiries or issues not resolved through automation were promptly escalated to agents, ensuring a structured and efficient resolution process.

Future Plans

Expanding Possibilities

PCNA's collaboration with Linc continues to unlock new avenues for growth; both in cost savings and revenue enhancement. They are exploring innovative use cases, including immediate alerts to the sales team regarding large orders, personalized sales support for key customers, and leveraging conversational AI chat to drive sales from various touch points using QR codes, SMS text reminders, and social media engagements.

These initiatives, driven by data analytics and PCNA's strategic priorities, exemplify their commitment to staying at the forefront of B2B digital transformation.

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Linc's Collaborative Data-Driven Approach

The successful implementation of Linc solutions at PCNA was underpinned by a close and collaborative engagement between the two entities. PCNA actively participated in understanding, defining, implementing, supporting, and enhancing the automated solutions provided by Linc. Through hands-on live training and asynchronous recordings, PCNA's staff gained the knowledge and confidence to make impactful changes to their CX effortlessly.

Continuous data-focused analytics and regular review sessions ensured ongoing enhancements and proposed improvements, reflecting Linc's long-term partnership philosophy.

“Linc’s success is intrinsically tied to our customer’s success”, —Brett Gentry, Sr. Director of Product Management, Linc.

Throughout their journey, Linc consistently reviews and suggests refinements to optimize outcomes, showcasing the value of their partnership, which continues to this day.