As one the leading mattress companies in all of Costa Rica, La Repa de Sueños faced serious challenges balancing their need to manage hundreds of daily customer interactions, streamline their sales funnel, and keep ahead of their competition.
“We were growing too fast for the team to keep up,” explained owner Trilce Jirón Garro. “We had to make real, meaningful changes, or we’d never reach that next level of growth.”
As a mattress company, Trilce said, personalization is everything. “Our sleep technicians need to ask a series of detailed questions to understand customer needs,” which is often very time-consuming and not scalable.
Turns out, no two people sleep the same way.
Gathering customer-specific information and giving them tailored advice is crucial to maintaining trust and developing a competitive edge.
Thankfully, Trilce’s been a longtime Manychat user. She’s participated in our platform’s major milestones, like Flow Builder’s launch, email, and WhatsApp. So, with the development of Manychat AI, it made total sense to see what she’d think of our new improvements.
So, with personalization in mind, Trilce implemented Manychat’s AI Step, a tool that allows for a virtual AI assistant to ask those very questions.
“The scripts are pretty simple,” said Trilce. “They’re broken down into two parts: sales and repair.” With a new shiny third automation for power washing.
In fact, La Repa de Sueños sells new mattresses while also fixing older ones, too.
For the repair script, Julio, Trilce’s Manychat AI assistant, introduces itself and explains its role in the process. Then it asks important questions such as:
- What’s the size of your mattress?
- What kind of mattress needs repair? (The store only fixes inner-spring, since foams can’t be repaired and according to Trilce are a way to destroy your back)
- What is the level of firmness to your mattress?
- Do you have any health issues we need to take into consideration, re: back pain.
- Customer location for same day pick up and drop off.
- A photo request so the team knows what it’s getting into
Once the AI gathers all of this information, it provides a summary to the customer and forwards it to the sales team who can put together a plan, while also having all the needed information to answer any question that may come its way.
“The best part about AI Step is being able to test having conversations with my AI in sandbox mode, and edit the script to see how the chat evolves” Says Trilce.
When it comes to new sales, the script is a little different.
Julio introduces itself and asks basic questions like:
- What size mattress is the customer interested in?
- What’s wrong with their current mattress?
- What level of firmness does the customer prefer?
- What’s your body type? Cause fun fact, mattresses should be sold by weight in order to provide the perfect firmness and support.
- What’s your location for drop off?
“Because they’re armed with basic information about the customer, reps save a ton of time,” says Trilce.
Why using AI works
Now, Trilce’s team no longer spends hours on repetitive inquiries. Instead, they concentrate on understanding customer needs and building relationships. The AI handles the groundwork, then the sales team dazzles with their personal touch.
Leads are LOVING the humanization of the AI, by introducing itself as Julio the person creates an emotional connection to the automation, making it easier for them to trust the process and engage in conversation. The image below shows a lead calling the AI “Julito”, a nickname for Julio, and thanking him for asking the questions.
And thanks to this process, Manychat’s AI Step has leveled up La Repa de Sueños’ operations, leading to some serious results. In just a month of use:
- The AI Repair automation was triggered 1546 times, with 932 complete interactions, and the AI Sales automation saw 1494 interactions, with 915 completions.
- The workload for the sales team decreased by 90%, allowing them to handle more clients and stay focused on closing sales.
- Gathering customer information was slashed from four hours to just five minutes. ( 🤯)
- The company saw a 35% jump in sales since implementing AI Step.
Inspiration for Your Business
Replicating La Repa de Sueños’ success is easy. It only takes implementing a few rules:
- Identify Key Challenges: Understand the specific pain points in your customer interaction process.
- Set Clear Goals: Define what you want to achieve with AI-driven automation, such as reducing response times or increasing sales.
- Develop a Script: Create a script that addresses necessary questions and information needed from customers.
- Give it Context: Make sure you give it all you can so it can make the right moves.
- Humanize Your AI: Name your AI assistant and ensure transparency in customer interactions
- Measure and Optimize: Track the performance of your AI steps and continuously refine them to improve efficiency.
In the end, by coupling the digital with the real world, Manychat’s AI Step transformed La Repa de Sueños. The company can do more because their sales team isn’t swamped with the little things. Processes were streamlines, sales improved and customers weren’t spending hours mattress shopping. And for La Repa de Sueños, they weren’t counting sheep, but instead their dollars.
The contents of this blog were independently prepared and are for informational purposes only. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ManyChat or any other party. Individual results may vary.