As a digitalization leader in the luxury car industry, Audi Taiwan faced three challenges: high labor costs for operating its customer service platform, difficulty calculating marketing returns, and lack of immediately actionable data insights. Therefore, in 2018, Audi Taiwan adopted the BotBonnie conversational marketing platform and selected LINE, which boasts 95.7% market penetration in Taiwan, as its platform of choice for communicating with customers. The brand used a chatbot service and automatic keyword detection to reply to customers in real time, which effectively reduced communication costs for its customer service center. In addition, the brand was able to more efficiently find new potential buyers on the LINE platform and track their digital footprints
To integrate brand marketing and after-sales service, Audi Taiwan adopted the BotBonnie conversational marketing platform and established a one-stop shop for real-time customer service. Audi Taiwan took advantage of the LINE messaging platform and launched the Audi Chatbot on its official account. The chatbot enabled existing and potential customers to not only receive the latest news on official brand events, but also book appointments for test drives, second-hand car shopping and online appraisals. In addition, with just one tap Audi car owners could open the Chatbot service, which would automatically estimate their mileage and date of next maintenance. The bot would then send a reminder to car owners and allow them to book an appointment online.
Audi Taiwan further created a long-term loyalty program. Car owners were able to earn Audi points whenever they used Audi’s customer services, such as the Audi Chatbot, booking and keeping a maintenance appointment, or completing a customer satisfaction survey. These points could then be used to redeem exclusive Audi products. These marketing measures helped the brand successfully attract one-third of its car owners to its LINE account, with 20% of car maintenance requests coming from the Audi Chatbot platform. The Audi Chatbot became car owners’ go-to chan
Audi Taiwan has been actively promoting the development of all-electric vehicles in Taiwan. In preparation, the brand began to think about how to help all-electric owners more easily plan their travel itineraries without worrying about mileage. With this in mind, Audi Taiwan partnered with Appier to build the “e-Travel Notes” service. This was used in combination with Audi Taiwan’s LINE platform to create an exclusive space for Audi e-tron owners to share with their community.
By using the “e-Travel Notes”, car owners could receive the latest news from the Audi all-electric community. In addition, they could use the Audi Chatbot to search for travel suggestions by entering their starting location and destination. The system could show up to 10 matching or similar itineraries from other users, and users could link to Google Maps for navigation with a single tap. Users could then start their journey, or share their travel experiences such as mileage, battery life, and charging station experience. With shared content from the community and big data analysis, Audi Taiwan was able to provide a wider range of travel suggestions to e-tron owners, thus creating a mutually beneficial sharing space and ensuring safer travels.
By letting drivers share their own experiences, Audi Taiwan drew more e-tron owners to join the community and get information such as battery life and route suggestions. This not only enhanced interaction among car owners, but also expanded and deepened communication between the brand and its customers. 24% of e-tron owners who bound their accounts used the e-Travel Notes to search for information. Since the e-tron series is a key area of development for Audi Taiwan, the brand will not stop at building a better user experience and community. In the future, the brand also aims to use AI machine learning technology to analyze driving route data to offer more accurate directions and pre-schedule charging sessions. The ultimate goal is to increase the e-tron series’ market share.
In four years of partnership with Appier’s BotBonnie, Audi Taiwan has cultivated a group of highly loyal customers through a long-term loyalty program. Using the Audi Chatbot to facilitate maintenance bookings and points earning/redemption, the brand was able to obtain first-party data from a third of its customers. Audi Taiwan then analyzed and integrated customers’ digital footprints and conversation data to provide better communications and services.
The BotBonnie team’s expertise helped Audi Taiwan to revamp its LINE platform and differentiate its services. By focusing on key services such as car owner account binding, loyalty programs, and maintenance booking, Audi Taiwan was able to stand out in the automotive industry. Meanwhile, the brand closely monitored customers’ needs and market trends to develop personalized services with the BotBonnie team. These included applications such as the e-Travel Notes, which fulfilled users’ needs and attracted more people to use the Audi Chatbot.
Katherine Chang, Digital and Business Specialist at Audi Taiwan, said, “Since we partnered with the BotBonnie team at Appier, they have been the most professional digital service consultants. They’ve continued to provide expert advice that helped Audi realize our ideas while considering costs and technical issues. The BotBonnie team has always been able to respond promptly and meet our needs. In the future, Audi Taiwan aims to continue building great services with BotBonnie, such as forums and pre-scheduled charging sessions. The goal is to provide better services on a one-stop platform for customers, to increase their loyalty and engagement.”