Cutting helpdesk tickets by 40% with AI Agents
We designed an AI agent that cut common customer inquiries by 40%, cut response time by 90%, and freed up human agents to focus on high-touch hospitality.
Problem: Humans doing machine work
Diners weren't getting their loyalty points sometimes. So they opened support tickets. Human customer support agents had to manually verify these requests across multiple tools. This process took a long time and tickets piled up. Human agents were unable to detect critical hospitality issues because they were overwhelmed with a growing ticket backlog.
It's a grind.— Human Support Agent
Diners submitted missing points requests through the LettuceEats mobile app (I previously redesigned this app as well).
How can we replace augment humans?
We mapped out the human support agent workflows and identified the repetitive and tedious tasks that an AI agent could automate (and is naturally good at).
Surprise: we needed very little AI, most of the automation could be handled via APIs.
AI that delivers value at every step
We proposed building the AI agent in phases that gradually took on more responsibility.
Phase 1: agent validates missing points tickets.
Phase 2: agent validates the transaction.
Phase 3: agent adds the missing points to the customer's wallet.
Service Blueprinting the 3 AI Agent phases. We also ran a tech spike concurrently to validate integration with Lettuce's existing systems.
Bulletproof design
Right before the build, the client shifted direction: let's allow customers to self-service their missing points inquiries without AI.
Since we had already planned the build in phases and understood the integrations, we simply reordered the phases to build the non-AI parts first.
Users could fill out a form for their missing points. And if the data matched, they'd get their points automatically. If not, they get routed to the AI agent path.
Hospitality, not help tickets
The AI agent took common missing points tickets off the human support agents' plate, allowing them to deliver the signature hospitality that Lettuce Entertain You is known for.
Diners were more confident about getting their loyalty points.
