Oftentimes we believe that bots are hardly used or that they tend to irritate users but the reality is quite the opposite: a bot is an additional source of information that can be exploited to enhance and empower products and services, answer customer queries and increase visibility and sales. Not convinced? Let us show-case an example with a sports event

The Mutua Madrid Open (also known as MMO) is one of the major tennis tournaments in the world, pursuing innovation and seeking to improve the user experience as a channel to provide information to its users and encourage interest in tennis and sport, collecting feedback and knowing how they think, becoming more efficient and clear with the location of all the services provided (commercial area, entertainment, concerts, restaurants, merchandising, ticket offices, etc.).

The Mutua Madrid Open (also known as MMO) is one of the major tennis tournaments in the world, pursuing innovation and seeking to improve the user experience as a channel to provide information to its users and encourage interest in tennis and sport.

By make increasing the availability of information organisers seek to gather feedback to know their audience, which in turn translates into an increased flow of access to the various venues and services available (shops, entretainment areas, concerts, restaurants, merchandising, box-offices, etc..). Whilst this does indeed enhance the user experience, there still remains the question of how to innovate and grow services and sales. And one of the answer lies in the use of chatbots.

Spreading knowledge

The first step was to implement an FAQ to answer the most comment questions such as “How to get to…”, or “Show me entrances”. In particular, these were answered by providing plans and schematics that allow users to know what to expect when reaching their destination instead of getting lost in crowds, or interacting with the bot through their favourite social media whilst waiting to get into a court or whilst watching their favourite player train in a court or simply having a rest in one of the multiple sitting areas available.

The next challenge was ticket sales, with more than 800 different types of tickets available for purchase (subscriptions, tournament phases, morning-afternoon, zones, categories, etc.) An assistant was developed to help users find the right option amongst those available, guiding them through the various steps according to their preferences.

To complement this feature and enhance the experience we also integrated a player search option where users can quickly find profile data, ranking, wins and statistics of any player thorugh the use of WTA and ATP sources. Thus, it is no longer an issue to miss the introductions or not recalling the profile of your favourite player.

Increasing sales

As some of us like to get a souvenir to remember the event – like a tennis ball, a cap or a t-shirt where a player can an autograph can be signed on and to increase sales we have added merchandising info with the location of the stores, a product catalogue and a QR code to get a special discount.

Continuous improvement

These options amongst others, have been greatly improved during the event thanks to a variety of factors including the use of analytics which have been integrated in the bot. These allowed us to find the most common queries, where in the sales cycle the process was interrupted or abandoned by users and the feedback sent by them. The results allowed us to tweak the bot on-the-fly to improve the services during the event and gather useful data to prepare for the enhancementes that will be featured next year.

Channels

To make this innovative channel available to all users, MatchBot has been integrated with various channels and social media: web, official Android and iOS apps, Facebook and Twitter. The Twitter option is not yet available in the Oracle cloud service but the BSS team managed to get the integration working, allowing replies using boh direct messages and hashtags in the public timeline.

Last but not least, the bot has support for multiple languages based on the user profile (or based on the first sentence typed if the language preference is not set) without the use of external services.

Conclusion

Thanks to the use of "MatchBot", the Mutua Madrid Open has been able to gather information on potential areas for improvement, be that at the information level, facilities or interaction with its users. It has enriched the attendees experience during the event by providing info on demand and increasing benefits to the company.

Would you like to benefit from the possibilities brought about by chatbots? Get in touch with us – we will be happy to discuss your requirements and build one that best suits your needs!