Commercialisation of TRACS, An Artificial Intelligence Inspired, Text Response Automation system for Customer Support

Project Information

TRACS

Grant agreement ID: 782872

DOI

10.3030/782872

Project closed

EC signature date 28 July 2017

Start date 1 August 2017

End date 30 November 2017

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

TRUE AI LIMITED
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TRACS (Commercialisation of TRACS, An Artificial Intelligence Inspired, Text Response Automation system for Customer Support)

Reporting period: 2017-08-01 to 2017-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Over €11bn in Europe per annum is spent globally to deliver text-based customer service. However, as 60-80% of customer queries are simple and repetitive a huge opportunity for improved customer experience and cost savings exists in automating parts of the agent workflow.

The project is aimed at addressing the market need for an effective and affordable customer service experience using an advanced artificial intelligence tools called TRACS (Text Response Automation system for Customer Support). TRACS supplies the customer service agents with response suggestions to the customers’ inquiries. This frees up agent time and improves customer satisfaction (See figure). TRACS has demonstrated automation levels of 59.7%, estimated to save 34.0% of the agent’s time per inquiry.

The first phase of the project is a commercial feasibility study. Upon validation of the commercial viability, the second phase is aimed at rapid commercialisation of TRACS in Europe and globally.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

A Client Working Group (CWG) consisting of 7 diverse members was established via a systematic onboarding and sales process. Multiple activities were undertaken to assess TRACS’ performance in industry settings with the CWG members. Qualitative and quantitative feedback was collected through all stages.

The feasibility study reinforced TRACS’ strong business case. Some members of CWG have already purchased TRACS and others are in late stages of the sales process. The outcome of the study has been used to identify barriers to rapid commercialisation of TRACS. A detailed commercialisation plan was established for phase 2 of the project.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

TRACS performed well on not only short dialogues, such as live chat and tweets, but also on longer conversations like emails (which represents the largest market share).

TRACS, unlike its competition, was shown to also perform well even on small dataset sizes. This allows Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to use TRACS. Successful market penetration of TRACS would mean 24x7 customer service to customers and superior customer experience that is affordable to all SMEs boosting economic growth both in Europe and globally.

Adoption of TRACS will lead to currently offshored agents being re-shored, resulting in improved EU job creation. In the future, TRACS’ generic algorithm can analyse this data to identify consumer preferences and demand, allowing businesses to transform the customer service function into a powerful strategic tool, driving additional revenues.

TRACS assisting customer service agent in real time.