The company
This Hatch customer is a nationally recognized home service company with a dedicated call center. Note that first names in this story have been changed for confidentiality.
The problem
This customer had been using Hatch for a year to instantly engage leads. With automation and adding text as a communication channel, they were seeing 40-45% response rates—four times higher than the 10-15% they were seeing when using phone only.
This is done through a series of automated, but personalized texts, emails,
and voicemails that continue reaching out over the course of several days
until the lead responds.
These higher response rates were great, but it has become a challenge to keep up with. “We have seen such great success with Hatch in our first 9-10 months, so I wanted to know if there was an even more efficient way to engage our leads,” says Mark, the company’s Digital Inside Sales Coordinator.
The solution
That’s when Mark began using Hatch AI.
An AI agent to handle inbound leads...
He created a bot named Emilio, who is fully equipped with:
- A checklist of information to get from the lead
- A full business profile to reference
- Instructions on things like how to handle objections and how to mark contact records based on conversation outcomes
...with true service demeanor
So now, when new leads come in, Emilio reaches out to them over text and through personable conversation, qualifies them, and then passes the lead off to Mark to set the appointment. “Emilio does all the heavy lifting,” says Mark. “I just carry it through the finish line. It’s seamless.”
Even if a lead is disqualified, Emilio politely parts ways with them. He’s very amicable,” says Mark, “so even when he says no it’s a nice and respectable way.”
The results
Emilio has become an invaluable addition to the team and paramount to their success.
Higher set rates
With the level of speed and personalization Emilio enables, this company's set rate increased from 42% to 60%—a 25% improvement.
Hours saved
In the past month, Emilio has handled 774 conversations and filtered out 499 unqualified leads. Multiply this by the average conversation duration of 15 minutes, and that’s 193.5 hours per month—or 48 hours per week. That’s a full-time employee.
“It’s like having a fifth man on a four-man team,” says Mark.
A reduction in overhead costs
With the time saved alone, Hatch AI is saving this organization $1,200 a week in overhead.
This amounts to $62,400 a year and doesn't include additional cost savings, such as those associated with wasted opportunities, agent training and turnover, and customer churn.
A better customer experience
The above time savings assumed an average conversation duration of 15 minutes. That's HUMAN conversation duration. EMILIO's average conversation duration is 4.8 minutes. That’s 67% faster. This is because Emilio can handle infinitely many conversations at once without falling behind on responses or losing service demeanor.
“He responds quickly and says the right things, which keeps the customer engaged so the conversation doesn’t stall out,” says Mark. "He gets it done so much faster.”
So with a 5-second response time and 5-minute conversation duration, those 774 conversations which would have taken a human 193 hours, only took 62 hours. In other words, this company is booking more appointments and customers are getting a faster experience.
More engagement with less effort
With Emilio working alongside Mark, they’ve been able to generate 453% more activity in the same amount of time. Since implementing Emilio, there has been a 388% increase in outbound texts, indicating higher productivity, and a 670% increase in inbound texts, indicating higher customer engagement.
Faster human response times
Of course, Emilio doesn’t do all of the conversing with customers. Mark still does plenty. And with Emilio doing the heavy lifting, Mark’s first response time has improved.
This is how long it takes for him to reply to a lead once they have responded to that automated outreach message, or once Emilio passes the lead off to him. Prior to Emilio, Mark’s first response time was about 6 minutes.
This is the best one person can do when handling several conversations at once. And it’s much better than the several days it could take prior to Hatch, but that’s still a long time for a customer to wait.
Now with Emilio, Mark’s first response time is 2 minutes, making for an even better customer experience.
The impact
The tangible results of Hatch AI for this business have given way to some key intangible benefits of even greater impact.
Providing convenience for customers
Hatch automation has equipped this brand to stay true to its commitment to speed and convenience for the customer while also maintaining quality interactions, and AI has proven a way to further scale that success.
“Hatch Speed to Lead, and now AI, has made things easier not just for us, but more importantly, for the customer. From the moment someone reaches out, to actually being on the line with one of our reps—we want that to be as fast as possible for our clients,” says Dave, the company's Director of Inside Sales.
Staying committed to being digital-first
Another way that Hatch AI has helped this call center stay committed to the customer experience is by equipping them to stay ahead of the digital curve.
“We are always looking for ways to be forward-thinking, so we can stay ahead of what our customers want. That’s something we take a lot of pride in. And that’s one of the reasons we love partnering with Hatch. They never stand still,” says Dave.
A more rewarding job
Hatch AI doesn’t just improve the customer experience; it improves the employee experience too. With Emilio’s help, Mark’s day-to-day has changed drastically, and for the better.
“I went from just grinding all day long to being able to make calls while Emilio is working his magic with the customer. Conversations used to pile up on me, but now Emilio provides a soft landing until I can get to them. It’s like having an extra teammate.”
Mark also shares that building Emilio was fun and though it was challenging at times, seeing him come to fruition was extremely rewarding. “We raised him up like a child,” Mark says, laughing.
With Hatch AI and automation, Mark has been able to make a tangible impact in the organization.
“We’ve moved a lot of mountains with Hatch ever since we started last spring, and Mark has been instrumental in making this a success for us,” says Dave.