Chegg Uses Simplr’s EngageNow Suite to Decrease its Digital Ticket Workload by 37% and Lower Its Resolution Costs
EdTech company Chegg has a vision to help modern students achieve educational goals in less time and at a lower cost. Chegg hatched from an idea to become a learner’s one-stop shop for all their schooling needs. The company’s student-first approach ensures learners have the tools they need to reach their full potential.
Chegg’s Student Advocacy (CX) team understands the value of students’ time and the urgency of their requests. By combining the power of automation and Simplr’s support agents on the Human Cloud Network, Chegg found Simplr’s EngageNow Suite as a cost-effective way to fortify its support team through volume fluctuations without compromising quality. Simplr’s automation paired with its on-demand, scalable support team lowers customer effort, relieves internal agents from repetitive tasks, and gives agents more time to focus on high-level tickets. Chegg uses Simplr’s chatbot to automate the process of refunds, conduct order updates, account help, and other FAQs, while its AI-intent detection aptly routes inquiries to the best-suited agent who can provide the right connection and knowledge.
“Simplr has this ability to staff up and staff down that no other vendor we’ve tried has been able to do. Our volumes can experience massive spikes and Simplr is the only one that’s been able to keep up with it.”
Kerrie Lazenby, Senior Vendor Manager
The challenge:
Chegg’s customer base–students–have highly seasonal support needs. Chegg had to match its own agent resourcing to the highly variable–and at times unpredictable–seasonality. The internal team was overwhelmed with volume.
The company needed to solve the following issues:
- Efficiently scale its support team without compromising quality
- Fully support its seasonal spikes throughout the year
- Decrease the workload for internal agents
- Reduce customer effort
Chegg’s search for a new chatbot:
To reduce its reliance on live agents for routine inquiries and FAQs, Chegg sought to implement a chatbot on its website. The company piloted chatbots from Simplr and a competitor for one month each. In the end, Chegg chose Simplr’s chatbot because we:
- Resolved 45% more inquiries than its competitor
- Had an 88% accuracy rate on identifying and resolving subscription cancellations and refunds
The solution:
Chegg chose Simplr’s EngageNow Suite because it combines the power of Simplr’s Human Cloud Network and chatbot. The Human Cloud Network of support agents allowed the company to scale its team up and down without forecasting and Simplr’s automation capabilities helped Chegg reduce customer effort, shortened resolution times, and smart-routed inquiries to an appropriate support agent.
Simplr built Chegg an intelligent chatbot with intent detection to answer FAQs, automate refunds, make order updates, provide account help, and route tickets that required a human touch to live agents. With Simplr in Chegg’s toolkit, students got answers to their problems easier and faster. This freed up time for live agents to focus on tickets with higher complexity.
“Simplr provided the flexibility we sought to scale efficiently, automate monotonous tasks, and the space to serve our customers with their most sensitive issues. The Simplr chatbot was quick to production, and remains consistent in resolving ~25% of digital contacts [SMS, Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook messages, Chatbot] without support from a live agent.“
Sienna Hitzeman, Senior Product Manager
The benefits of the EngageNow Suite didn’t end there. Simplr’s chatbot continuously learned from the tickets it answered through automation and the Human Cloud Network. Over time, the chatbot’s scope continuously increased, which allowed it to:
- Automate more tickets to free up time for Chegg’s internal agents
- Reduce customer effort further
- Lower ticket resolution costs
If the chatbot detected it couldn’t resolve an issue, it intelligently routed the ticket to a live agent for a human touch. Simplr’s 24/7 human cloud network meant Chegg’s students were never left unattended when they needed help.
“What I really appreciate about Simplr is the scalability of its support services. There’s comfort in knowing there’s an intelligent chatbot on our website backed by a wealth of support agents through Simplr.”
Kelley Cutforth, Vice President of Customer Service
The results:
With the EngageNow Suite, Chegg has an army of support agents readily available 24/7. The company also has an intelligent chatbot that can automate monotonous tasks and FAQs. It also has the ability to continuously learn from inquiries that are resolved through automation and from agents on the Human Cloud, resulting in a higher take rate, efficiency, and cost savings over time.
As a result of all this, Chegg has:
- Decreased its internal agent’s digital inquiry workload by 37%
- Lowered its cost with Simplr by 32% per resolution
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Learn more about Chegg.
Meet Chegg’s team
Kelley is motivated by serving customers with excellent support experiences through leading powerful teams that make it happen. A tenured operational leader specialized in simplifying complexity, guiding with empathy, creativity, and stability amongst her organization. Kelley has grown the size and strength of her teams to best achieve exceptional customer service.
Sienna is a curious and strategic product leader driven by her desire to solve users’ needs efficiently and effectively. She balances product decisions by leveraging customer feedback, data insights, and intuition. Her passion for serving customers and CX organizations continues to prosper with 6+ years of experience delivering high-quality customer support.
Kerrie is an analytical operations leader with a passion for innovation and solving complex problems. She has developed an extensive career through customer support and now pilots a growing organization dedicated to providing high-quality service at any scale. Kerrie leverages her unique skill set to deliver on Chegg’s commitment to customers while making critical, strategic decisions for the business.