Soaring satisfaction: Birdie Care’s support automation success

In the fast-paced world of customer support, where quick responses and resolutions are crucial, the arrival of AI has been nothing short of revolutionary. Among the champions leading the charge in AI-driven customer support, Birdie Care stands out.

In an age where 9% of the world's population is over the age of 65, the demand for efficient and compassionate elderly care has never been greater. Birdie Care, a holistic care platform providing tailored preventive care for older adults, recognized this early on.

With an aim of radically redefining how we age, Birdie partners with homecare agencies and equips them with state-of-the-art software. As Luke Cullimore, Revenue Operations Manager at Birdie and a key figure in their support operations, “Our mission is to radically improve the lives of older adults and ensure that we can all age safely in our own homes.”

Here's the inspiring journey of Birdie Care’s partnership with Intercom, when AI met empathetic customer support.

The challenge: Meeting the needs of a modern care system

As Birdie expanded, the challenge of delivering consistent and high-quality support to its partners grew enormously. The support team – which had grown to include 12 support associates, several managers, and a head of support – still struggled to efficiently handle incoming requests and faced large training gaps within the team. “We've pretty much doubled the scope of our platform and product over the last 18 months,” Luke shares. “And with that came so many new complexities and queries.”

Having initially implemented Intercom five years ago, Birdie temporarily transitioned to Zendesk, hoping it would address the team’s enterprise-grade ticketing system needs. However, without a thorough request for proposal (RFP) process, and after a hasty migration, they faced implementation gaps and functional limitations.

The team found themselves at a crossroads.

The solution: A return to innovation with Intercom

Realizing the gaps in its new solution, Birdie quickly turned its attention back to Intercom. As Luke candidly shares, “We had a brief period where we looked at Zendesk and actually started trying to implement it. Within a week, we pivoted back.” Birdie found unmatched value in Intercom, viewing it as their “full-stack support solution, for now and the future.” Luke adds, “The product innovation and vision Intercom shows is creating a new category in support.”

Intercom‘s full-stack solution offered Birdie a consolidated tool that addressed both customer communication and support.

The introduction of Fin, Intercom‘s AI chatbot, was a game-changer for the team. Fin became Birdie‘s primary solution for automated support and bot-based resolution, offering an immediate and effective solution to the rising tide of customer queries.

The Birdie team now confidently serves a rapidly growing customer base and is excited about Intercom’s continuous advancements in ticketing and support. They believe that these developments not only drive operational efficiency when it comes to managing simple queries, but also enable the team to tackle complex queries in a more effective and efficient way.

Since integrating Fin, Birdie has witnessed a remarkable improvement to its support efficiency. “Fin is now resolving 26% of our conversations, a significant improvement from our previous benchmarks,” says Luke.

Key results

• A 2pp increase in CSAT scores in August and September, sustaining a score of over 90% for more than a year.

• 26% Fin resolution rate, for conversations it was involved in.

• A 20pp increase in auto-resolution rates within just two months.

These results weren‘t just numbers – they were a testament to a well-thought-out approach that prioritized user privacy while leveraging technology‘s power.

Birdie has since taken actions to revise its capacity forecast and business plan – and even reduced the expected headcount the team would need to meet increasing demand for the year ahead by 30% thanks to the efficiency gains of AI and automation. Additionally, the team saw huge improvements in support’s contribution to the company’s gross margin.

Overcoming obstacles to success

As a dynamic healthtech company, diving into the realm of AI-powered support solutions presented both an opportunity and a challenge for Birdie. The team had to tread carefully around data privacy, especially with solutions hosted outside their primary region. Initial apprehensions rose around the risk of sharing personal data with Fin.

Luke vividly remembers the launch of Intercom‘s AI-powered chatbot, Fin. “When I first saw the releases about Fin, I was all over Slack, pinging my team – especially the data protection officer and CTO. There was this buzz about what Fin could possibly do,” he says.

But for Birdie, the path wasn‘t straightforward. Initial reactions were mixed. As one teammate put it at the time, “The reality is we can‘t be early adopters here because of the privacy risks.”

Concerns about user privacy were paramount given that customers could freely share personal data in the chat. “We had to be certain,” Luke says. “What if a user unknowingly shares their personal information? And would Fin genuinely be effective for our complex product?”

However, Luke saw an opportunity to assess the true risk and the genuine value of the tool. He invested time in manually running 500 historical customer queries through Fin. The results were revealing:

• Personal data was rarely shared in chats.

• OpenAI and Intercom‘s partnership ensured there was zero data retention on all Fin conversations.

• The team was able to estimate the expected auto-resolution rate they would see with Fin.

With these insights, the Birdie team trialed Fin with 100 partners. Because of their focus on privacy, they always asked customers upfront whether they intended to share personal data. After the initial release in Q3, the team spent Q4 re-reviewing their privacy concerns, identifying their most low-risk queries, and increasing the scope of Fin – boosting auto-resolution rates to 22% as a result.

Based on this success, Birdie expanded its usage of Fin, achieving consistent, positive results as Luke explains: “We're seeing the same results with all of our partners now as well. And there was an uptick in CSAT ... we've maintained like 90% CSAT for the last 12 months.”

This rigorous and systematic approach ensured not only internal acceptance but also the protection of users‘ sensitive information.

Embracing ‘human + AI’ approach to support

Tech is transformative, but the human touch is at the heart of support. Amidst the advancements in AI, Birdie‘s support team was eager to understand their evolving role.

The goal was clear: AI was there to augment, not replace.

The team was focused on ensuring AI‘s decisions resonated with the human ethos of care that Birdie stands for. They took a strategic approach to enhancing the support experience with AI and automation, focusing on a number of key areas:

• Manual checks: Birdie still manually checks conversations where Fin interacted to gauge the accuracy of the responses. Using Fin conversations in the Inbox – a navigable and filterable list of all of Fin’s conversations – the team samples chats where Fin was unable to provide answers to understand gaps in their support content.

• Feedback loop: Since hiring a dedicated support content manager a year ago, Birdie has doubled its help center‘s size and scope. Through Fin, the team can now instantly gauge the effectiveness of changes made to the help center. Luke emphasizes the valuable feedback loop Fin provides, saying, “The feedback loop for Fin is probably the most optimal feedback loop we've got around our help center.”

• Content targeting: Luke highlights the team’s ability to tailor content shown to users based on certain customer attributes. This tailoring helps streamline customer support and enables Birdie to offer personalized help to specific users.

• Future focus: Moving forward, besides refining their use of AI, Birdie plans to further delve into ticketing systems and to consolidate their tiered support model to ensure their growing customer base gets optimal support.

Building for the future with Intercom

Birdie‘s ambitions are high. As the team continues to see momentum in their go-to-market motion, they have outlined a three-point plan:

1. Operationalize Fin to continuously improve resolution rates.

2. Holistically integrate Intercom Tickets across support workflows, tapping into new SLA functionalities.

3. Build premium service channels like phone and screen share, transforming support into a revenue-generating function.

Inspired by brands like Monzo, which is known for its exceptional support experience, the Birdie team envisions a future where their support isn't just efficient, but a true hallmark of excellence.

With Intercom‘s innovative solutions, Birdie has been able to enhance its support strategy and empower its team to embrace the future of tech. Birdie‘s journey with Intercom epitomizes how forward-thinking companies can harness technology to not just solve immediate challenges but also pave the way for future innovations. Through this partnership, Birdie stands poised to lead in an age where quality elderly care, backed by robust support, becomes the norm, rather than the exception.