When Odeon Cinemas upgraded its Customer Experience (CX) platform this year and rolled out a new AI-powered assistant to handle guest queries, the expected benefits from faster resolution and freeing up human agents were clear. But it was also important to stay true to the values of a brand that has been a staple feature of the UK’s leisure experience for generations. That meant putting a lot of effort into ensuring the AI came across with the right tone of voice. Charlotte Ullathorne, the chain’s Head of Marketing, explains:
It was really important for us that we didn’t become robotic, because that’s not who we are. We’ve got a huge amount of heritage — we’ve been around for 100 years. We’re a very traditional brand as well. So it was really important for us that we had a route if someone did absolutely want to speak to us or chat to us, they can. So we’ve not cut off any of those lines. And also that the tone of voice we were using was still really friendly, really engaging, really on brand, but appropriate.
The company’s cinemas have been a fixture in most of Britain’s larger towns and cities, with many imposing art deco buildings surviving from the 1930s. Today it operates 114 cinemas across the UK and Ireland, including the flagship Odeon Leicester Square, a frequent location for major world film premieres and other red-carpet occasions. Ullathorne is responsible for marketing, branding, and commercial activity across the chain, as well as managing the guest services call center in Manchester.
Tone of voice
The new AI chatbot was introduced alongside other changes as part of an upgrade to the existing Zendesk CX system, which brought in omnichannel routing and new automations for processing ticket refunds, membership cancelations and other frequent tasks that previously required a human agent. Bringing the AI agent up to speed on the right content and tone of voice to use was a similar process to onboarding a new human agent — there was already an established practice of sharing website content with the guest services team to ensure consistency between online and in-person conversations. As well as feeding in all the website content, the team also shared records of how human agents were interacting with guests so that the AI could learn to chat with the same familiar Odeon tone. Ullathorne explains:
Our tone of voice is… friendly, it’s approachable, it’s genuine, it’s authentic. We do the same with our content. We want it to be relatable, and human.
So then, when you are implementing AI, it’s certainly a challenge to ensure that what you stand for as a brand translates through technology. That’s where we fed in real-life chats, human-to-human chats — they all went in the bot, as well as our tone of voice and all the documents that we’ve written, all the content, so it naturally became, or is becoming, like a human agent, so you wouldn’t necessarily know the difference.
The company’s experienced team of call center agents were also closely involved in preparing the ground. She recounts:
Many of them have been working for Odeon for 20+ years, so that knowledge within the business, not only from them as colleagues on the journey, but also everything they’ve heard over the years, they know the nuances about cinemas, they are so incredibly knowledgeable…
First and foremost, we made sure our agents were with us, from right at the start. We were really transparent, and actually they fed into the journey we went on with tech solutions. They spoke about the barriers that they faced, because there were some real hurdles around where they were spending so much time looking into different chats, using different channels, as people communicated within the center. There’s quite a few golden nuggets that came from there.
Freeing up time
Rolling out the agent, along with other changes, has led to some big improvements in efficiency. For example, having the AI agent walk customers through ticket refunds and other changes to bookings has reduced handling times for these common requests by 90%. Overall, the AI agent either resolves or deflects 60% of incoming inquiries and is proving particularly adept at handling the repeat questions that often come in surges around new cinema releases and related marketing campaigns. But while the AI has been taking over these tasks from its human counterparts, the people have simply moved on to do other things. Ullathorne says:
The work we’ve done is reduce their time on traditional queries by 40%, but what we’ve actually done is redeployed that skill and that knowledge to service other functions within the business. So we have agents now working with our sales team as the chain gets queries about group bookings or business bookings. We also now use them to help our internal support system, [handling] queries from our facilities. We have thousands of colleagues, and they want to know, when a ticket’s going on sale, when we’re getting our merch delivered to our cinema, what’s happening with this competition?
So we’ve basically redeployed those agents and some of the tech solutions to help service other functions. We’ve not lost one colleague from our contact center, which is amazing.
While some customers still prefer to speak to a human agent — and Odeon has ensured this is always possible for those that want it — others, particularly the more digital savvy, younger generation, relish their interactions with the AI chatbot, which is called Odi. The team has automated QA monitoring and Odi consistently ranks in the 80-90% range for customer satisfaction. As the chain gears up for its busiest season heading into the Christmas period, the team will be keeping a watchful eye over Odi as the AI continues to learn the ropes. She sums up:
Just like we would teach and train and supervise a new team member, we’re doing the same with Odi. The more we’re learning and the more we can put into the AI bot, the better the outcomes. That’s an ongoing process, that’s not just a one-and-done.
I’m not from the tech world, it’s not my background, so we’re learning. We’re learning through Zendesk, and having those really open and honest conversations with Zendesk, and as well as the managers that run the guest service center.
