Chatbot Case Study: Bupa, an International Healthcare Company

When Bupa, an international healthcare company with 80,000 employees, decided to relocate its London offices, they turned to Tangowork to create a chatbot to support the move.

“We wanted a communications medium as fresh and modern as our new office,” explains Fran Chambers, head of Bupa’s Centre Internal Comms. “In our new building there are no desk phones. Everything’s done via Skype for Business, and instant messaging is used regularly. So rather than create a website to talk about the new offices, we decided to introduce a chatbot that could offer instant answers.”

The chatbot, named ‘Cyan’ after Bupa’s brand color, is listed alongside other employees in the Skype directory. It is also embedded as a web part on their internal news website, Centre News Online. Cyan understands human language and answers questions such as:

• What’s the closest station to the new office?

• How do I contact Payroll?

• Are there gyms nearby? Do we get a discount?
  

The Bupa Internal Comms team in a Tangowork chatbot planning session

Tangowork worked closely with Bupa’s comms team to plan, build and deploy the chatbot. Workshops were conducted to brainstorm potential questions and define the chatbot personality. After building out the content, Bupa launched a gradually-expanding pilot that started with just a few people and doubled in size every week or so. During the pilot period, both Tangowork and Bupa closely monitored the transcripts of chatbot conversations. Whenever the chatbot had trouble understanding, the project team would decide: should the chatbot be taught to support this question? Or should the user be gently redirected back towards supported tasks?

About two-thirds of chatbot usage at Bupa is via Skype for Business. The balance is via embedded web chat in SharePoint

Bupa wisely constrained the scope of the chatbot, especially in the beginning. Del Green, Bupa’s Senior Digital Communications Manager, manages Cyan day to day. “Before our move to Angel Court, the chatbot focused mainly on the office move: things like ‘when are we moving?’ and ‘do I need to pack my own things?’ After the move, we expanded to questions about day-to-day work in the new environment.”

“We went with Tangowork because they could get us up and running so quickly. And Tangowork has proven to be an exceptionally easy platform to work with.”

Del Green

Senior Digital Communications Manager, Bupa

The single most common question the chatbot receives is “what’s the password for guest wifi?” The wifi password changes frequently and many employees have found that the fastest way to get it is to simply turn to Skype for Business and ask Cyan.

Del is pleased with the results so far. “Employees are intrigued by Cyan,” he explains. “We already see many opportunities to expand our use of chatbots at Bupa.”

And what about working with Tangowork? “We went with Tangowork because they could get us up and running so quickly. And Tangowork (Chatbot Accelerator) has proven to be an exceptionally easy platform to work with. Their team was efficient and professional, and the product itself keeps getting better and better.”