Norse Atlantic Airways specializes in long-haul, low cost, direct flights to a variety of intercontinental destinations, giving travelers greater opportunities and flexibility to discover the world.

Challenges

With a rapidly growing customer base, Norse Atlantic faced a pressing issue of increased incoming questions. Tobias Bjerkholt Svensson, Customer Experience Project Leader, explains the challenge:

“We estimated that the number of monthly cases would triple, which would require tripling our agent workforce to manage them — something that wasn’t practical or sustainable.”

Many inquiries were simple, repetitive questions such as flight terminal details or check-in times, information that was already available and could be answered without human involvement.  

Tobias estimated that 30% of Norse Atlantic inquiries could be resolved by a chatbot to save time and resources, and future proof the customer service department for upcoming growth. The goal of implementing a chatbot therefore became to eliminate simple, repetitive questions and in the long term answer more complex questions and drive sales by having the chatbot act as a travel agent.

Selection

When evaluating chatbot vendors, Kindly was chosen due to ease of use, strong support capabilities and quick implementation time. Norse Atlantic didn't want to spend extensive time learning the platform or dealing with complex implementation, simplicity was essential. Tobias also mentions the partnership as a decisive factor:

Tobias also emphasizes the importance of language capabilities: ‍

“Our international customer base often communicates in their own languages. This was a strong argument for choosing Kindly, as its language capabilities outperformed other vendors we evaluated.”

Implementation & channel strategy

The implementation process went smoothly and was completed ahead of schedule, taking just one month.

“I found it enjoyable and dedicated a lot of time to it which I think was important. We set a timeline but completed it ahead of schedule, getting it up and running in just one month. Other similar systems have taken much longer to implement.” Tobias says.

Norse Atlantic adopted a channel strategy that limited alternative contact methods, directing all inquiries through the chatbot. This increased usage by 15% and allowed the chatbot to gather essential customer information upfront, ensuring faster response times when a support agent was needed.

“40% of all tickets needing a human agent come from the chatbot. It's very helpful for the agent when the customer goes through the chatbot since we can gather so much information beforehand, saving the agent time as well as the customers.” Tobias explains.

Results:

Norse Atlantic set a goal to achieve 60% automation within 15 months, something that was achieved after only 7,5 months. Immediately after implementing the chatbot named Odin’s Wingman, it reached 30% automation.

Tobias testifies to the successful launch:

“It was an incredible start. It’s easy to know what your customers ask for if you already have a chatbot, but since we didn’t, it was exciting to see that we had captured what customers were actually asking about.”

Today the chatbot automates around 67%, with the two most impactful improvements being the removal of the email contact option from the help center, making the chatbot the primary support channel, and transitioning to Kindly’s new dialogue-building system.

“Agents can now focus on more critical tasks and save a lot of time. That's where the chatbot really adds value.” Tobias says.  

Integrations have also played a big role in the chatbot's success. The integration with Norse Atlantics booking systems allows the bot to send booking confirmations to customers.

“This integration alone reduces the workload equivalent to 20% of a full-time employee.”

Tobias expresses that integrations overall saves the support team many hours and will be major going forward:

“There’s a limit to what can be achieved without integrations, they are essential to further improvements.”

During peak season in the summer, the chatbot took care of up to 75% of all interaction with the customer service department, demonstrating its ability to handle peaks. The fallback rate remains around 2,5% and is addressed if it rises above that threshold. Active management has been key to keeping it low, with only one person required to maintain it.

By leveraging analytics and data from the chatbot, Norse Atlantic gains valuable insights into customer communication and how to refine their solutions to better meet customer needs.

"Understanding our target audience has been much easier with the chatbot compared to email, where analyzing longer texts is more challenging," Tobias says.

Based on insights about their customer base, Norse Atlantic has also created a character around Odin’s Wingman, giving it the ability to be humorous and respond to quirky questions, such as whether lightsabers are allowed on flights from Orlando.

By implementing a chatbot, Norse Atlantic have streamlined customer service operations, reduced workload and enhanced the customer experience. Odin’s Wingman saves time and resources for agents and customers, playing a crucial role in Norse Atlantic continued growth.