Wave Financial's 5x ROI in 12 Months with Ada's Automated CX Solution

Wave Financial is a company that offers a suite of products and services for small business owners, including accounting, invoicing, payments, and payroll. They aim to provide best-in-class assistance to their customers should they encounter an issue or need advice. Customer experience (CX) is a crucial part of their business, with a team of 60+ associates focused on serving customers directly through support channels. They experience a significant increase in customer support volumes during the first quarter of the year, which they initially managed by pulling in employees from different departments and having agents work overtime. However, as the company grew, this approach became unsustainable, and the need for a more efficient, automated solution became apparent.

Wave Financial, a company offering a suite of products and services for small business owners, faced a significant challenge in managing customer experience (CX). With over half of their staff dedicated to customer support, they experienced a massive spike in customer support volumes during the first quarter of the year, often increasing by 200-300%. In the early days, they managed this by pulling in employees from different departments and having agents work overtime, but this was unsustainable as the company grew. The demand for higher standards for both customer and employee experience became more urgent. They needed a solution that could reduce wait times, negative customer interactions, and missed revenue opportunities. They had two options: hire more support staff to handle the volumes during the busy season, which would require more investment in hiring and training, or find a more efficient, automated approach to their CX that provides customers with immediate and reliable access and resolution.

Wave Financial decided on an automation-first approach and chose Ada's Automated CX (ACX®) framework and no-code features. They began implementing Wave’s chatbot, Mave, at the start of their busy season in January 2020. Ada’s ACX Consultants worked collaboratively with Wave's team to build out the bot’s foundation and automate the first essential flows. Mave was launched in only three and a half weeks and was able to contain on average 70% of the interactions during their busy season right after launch. Ada’s ACX Consultants also advised Wave's team on CX and automation best practices and showed them how to make the most of their new platform. This partnership empowered the Wave team to make Mave’s tone and voice consistent with Wave’s brand and develop specific use cases that ladder up to the overall CX strategy. Wave also used Ada to intelligently route different customers, based on their account tier and region, to different levels of support and different teams.

• The implementation of Ada's Automated CX (ACX®) framework and no-code features resulted in significant operational improvements for Wave Financial. The chatbot, Mave, was able to handle a large volume of interactions, freeing up Wave's agents to focus on more complex inquiries and build valuable relationships with customers through positive brand interactions. The bot also took care of routing customers based on their account tier and region, ensuring personalized CX from the start and meeting brand standards regardless of the customer tier. With the immediate needs of the support team met, Wave is now looking at other aspects of their CX where they can apply Ada’s automation. They’ve created a new team within their Customer Experience department focused on building out new use cases and answer flows for Mave to continually make it smarter, more interactive, and more engaging. They are also working on leveraging the chatbot beyond just support, with plans for proactive marketing, contextual assistance, and sales automation.

• 65% reduction in year-over-year support ticket creation within the first month of Mave's launch

• 70% of interactions were contained by Mave during the busy season right after launch

• Estimated annual savings of $1.20 million in inquiry deflections between March 2020 and March 2021