K2Bots.AI has launched a second-generation chatbot for IKEA that relieves pressure on the customer service office during periods of increased interest in online shopping.
The chatbot available at www.IKEA.pl/kontakt answers customer questions across 400 topics related to orders, deliveries, payments, complaints, returns, promotions and stores.
A conversation partner twice as smart
Unlike first-generation chatbots, the robotic consultant at IKEA answers most customer questions asked in natural language correctly, forgives typos, keeps the context of the conversation, provides parameterised answers and handles long questions. As a result, it is able to significantly relieve the Domolinia IKEA team, involving a consultant only in difficult conversations.
5,000 conversations a day
The IKEA chatbot already handles 5,000 conversations a day. It resolves more than half of incidents correctly and automatically. At peak times it talks to as many as 60 people at once. It already does the work of dozens of consultants, and as it is trained with new knowledge its effectiveness grows.
“The chatbot helped reduce the load on Domolinia IKEA, which increased significantly after IKEA's physical stores closed due to the epidemic. Thanks to this, we are able to answer a large proportion of customer questions immediately, 24/7.” – summarises Marcin Liszewski, Business Leader at IKEA. “The IKEA chatbot does not require selecting answers from a list, but responds to open questions asked in a way that is convenient for the customer and across a wide range of topics. It helps in a way that is as close as possible to human assistance. The results show that conversational artificial intelligence working in this way genuinely relieves consultants.” – says Mikołaj Machowczyk, CTO of K2Bots.AI.
Integration of global technologies
To create truly conversational artificial intelligence for IKEA, the K2Bots.AI team integrated two global technologies – the natural language understanding engine Google Dialogflow and the contact centre solution Genesys PureCloud. This is the first integration of its kind in the world. IKEA consultants handle, in the Genesys PureCloud console, conversations escalated by the chatbot when it fails to understand a question a second time, at the customer's request, or after detecting a case requiring human assistance, e.g. cancelling an order.
The second-generation chatbot at IKEA was launched by the K2Bots.AI team, which also ensures its continuous training so that the chatbot responds to customer problems in a way as close as possible to the assistance of a real consultant.
A demo of the IKEA chatbot in action can be viewed at https://youtu.be/mLOZ-n6dOd8
Terms from the article
How does the IKEA chatbot relieve customer service?
AI — Artificial Intelligence. A set of methods and systems performing tasks that usually require human reasoning, learning, perception or content generation. In HEXX AI CMS it covers language models, document analysis and automations.
Why it matters: It takes over repetitive tasks — transcriptions, descriptions, translations, selection — and shortens the path from idea to publication. In an editorial office it means more time for work a machine will not do: evaluation, contacts, decisions.
When it is used: For generating and editing content, document analysis, transcription, translation and automating the flow of materials.
What the risk of omitting it is: Without AI, the team manually performs bulk work (photo descriptions, language versions, summaries), while competitors publish faster and more cheaply.
Summary
The second-generation chatbot launched by K2Bots.AI for IKEA already handles 5,000 conversations a day, and resolves more than half of incidents automatically. At peak times it serves as many as 60 people simultaneously, relieving Domolinia IKEA during the epidemic when physical stores were closed.
The solution combines the natural language understanding engine Google Dialogflow with the contact centre Genesys PureCloud — the first such integration in the world. The bot forgives typos, keeps context and escalates difficult cases to consultants.
