When you fall asleep at night and lay your head on your pillow, you’re probably 1000 leagues away from imagining all the technology swarming beneath your ears… And yet: there’s so much to know about pillows, eiderdowns and other evening comforts! Since 1870, the French manufacturer Castex has been offering essential night-time accessories (comforters, linens, bolsters, etc.) at unrivalled value for money.
The family-run company was faced with a classic e-commerce problem: the technical specifications of its products are vast and highly specialized, leading – on the one hand – to a lack of understanding on the part of some Internet users, and – on the other hand – to a flood of inquiries from these users. As you can see, there’s a very simple system that can be put in place to remedy this latent waste of time: the chatbot! On the one hand, this automated conversational tool provides clear information, and on the other, it automates over 80% of the most common questions, saving customer service teams a huge amount of time, enabling them to concentrate on higher value-added issues.
Castex’s marketing department turned to us to configure their tool and meet their needs. Six months later, it was time to take stock of the situation and get some feedback. Béatrice Nalpas-Cala, Director of Marketing and Communications, agreed to answer our questions!
Introduce yourself and your company
A family-owned French company specializing in feathers and down for 5 generations, Manufacture Castex makes top-of-the-range natural comforters, eiderdowns, pillows and bolsters from new goose and duck down certified Origine France Garantie. Part of the circular economy, with Oeko-Tex® 100 and EPV (Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant) certification, Castex has converted all its 90% down ranges to organic cotton fabric, with recycled and recyclable packaging. A pure player, Castex distributes its products to private individuals via its online boutique, as well as to the Dax factory outlet, selected marketplaces and custom distributors and retailers. Sales 5.6 M€ – 18 employees
What issues did you face before launching your chatbot?
The technical nature of the products (loft, heat index, need for advice, after-sales service, etc.) meant that the customer service department was increasingly called upon to answer recurring questions by telephone, e-mail and live chat, despite the parallel optimization of the content of the product sheets and buying guide. With growing traffic and the launch of a new site in 2021, we decided to streamline the user experience and improve team productivity by integrating a chatbot.
How did you come to the conclusion that a chatbot would meet these needs?
Castex had already been using chat for years to optimize conversion and support customers. However, after 6 p.m. (office closing time) or at weekends, Castex users found themselves alone on our e-commerce site, obliged to ask their questions and wait for an answer on Monday morning.
The chatbot’s immediate and permanent responsiveness met the objective of continuous service and optimization of the 24-hour live transformation.
Why choose Botnation?
After careful benchmarking, we quickly included Botnation AI in our shortlist and compared 3 proposals. We chose Botnation AI for its simplicity of use, its artificial intelligence which enables us to adjust the chatbot, its well thought-out pricing and the fact that it’s a French company.
How did you come up with the chatbot? What was the design process?
We know our business, but we wanted to avoid any risk of error in the method we used to create the Castex chatbot. We therefore called on the Botnation AI teams to design and parameterize our chatbot, according to a process that was given to us to guide us on how to arrange the information and structure the approach.
You called on Botnation’s studio for the configuration and turnkey delivery of your chatbot, describe the experience for us:
Upstream with the sales team and then with the technical department, the process ran smoothly and we were reassured. The announced deadlines were met, and each acceptance related to each batch delivered enabled us to move forward and validate each stage right up to going online. The project evolved on a “test and learn” basis, while remaining within the defined scope.
Have you seen any initial results?
YES, very quickly, the customer service department was relieved and had more time to provide real advice to people to whom the chatbot had not provided an answer. Thanks to artificial intelligence, we were able to create additional questions/answers and enrich the bot. It’s a real sales ally.
Would you have any advice for a company that also wants to launch a chatbot?
Before creating your chatbot, categorize the different universes of possible questions and their answers. Simplify, and start by covering the 20/80.
Discover Castex’s informative and clear chatbot on their website!
