Garmin Israel Makes Customer Experience Top Priority by Deploying Vonage AI

These days, when you ask someone, “how you doin’?” their answer might include more information than you could have possibly imagined. As more and more people monitor their pulse, how many steps they’ve taken, flights of stairs they’ve climbed, and just how many hours of sleep they’re getting each night, the more detailed their responses might be! The worldwide demand for smartwatches and wearable technology is surging. The global smartwatch market was valued at $20.64 billion in 2019, and is projected to reach $96.31 billion by 2027.

In Israel, the digital health market is no exception. It is estimated that there are presently over 500 Israeli digital health companies that are expanding the nation’s health technology sector. One company that has taken a leadership position in the area of digital health and personal wellness, is Garmin Israel, also known as Ronlight, the official distributor of Garmin products throughout Israel. Ronlight is spreading the message that living a healthy lifestyle is more than just a fashion trend. And they’re proving it one smartwatch at a time.

According to Avishay Pariz, CEO of Ronlight Israel, “When we launched Garmin Health two years ago, our goal was to take the heightened awareness about fitness to the next level. We are motivating individuals. Among other things, we are creating corporate wellness solutions that help employers benefit from a healthier workforce.”

Choosing Vonage AI to Enhance Customer Experience

At the core of Ronlight’s successful business is a commitment to making customer satisfaction a top priority. “The ability to give our customers good service, quickly and efficiently, in a way that we can measure, is our goal every day,” said Pariz. To ensure that goal is met, Ronlight made the decision in 2018, to automate its contact centers with a voice AI-powered agent. 

“I’m a big fan of virtual assistants,” said Pariz. “I own many IoT products at home and am part of the voice technology community in Israel. That’s how I heard about Vonage AI. I saw the growing capabilities of voice assistants and I thought that the first and most powerful benefit to implementing one was to help us improve our customer experience.”

A large part of Ronlight’s choice of Vonage AI had to do with potential cost savings, but equally important was finding a partner that understood what they were trying to achieve to help them scale their customer experience to meet the needs of their growing customer base. Pariz says that the support they got from Vonage was “amazing.”

When “Roni” Became Part of the Team

“Our virtual assistant is named Roni, and we all think that she’s really awesome!” said Pariz. “In the first 3-5 months after Vonage helped us get Roni up and running, we were able to implement automations to answer around 60% of our caller inquiries.” 

Roni’s dashboard, created by Vonage AI for Ronlight, enabled Pariz and his co-workers to monitor the call center’s daily numbers, and it’s been a huge help to their business. On average, Roni successfully answers more than 70% of the calls without any human assistance. “The average duration of calls was reduced from around 3 minutes to less than 1:30 minutes without any waiting time. Before Roni, we were open 9 hours a day/5 days a week, with a waiting time of more than 4 minutes before someone answered; the average call duration was around 3 minutes. Now, our call center is 24/7 and customers are receiving quick resolutions to their issues.  We survey our customers and get pretty positive feedback regarding Roni.”

Keeping Roni Up-to-Date During COVID-19

When fallout from the global COVID pandemic reached Israel, Ronlight’s employees were not able to work from their offices. What could have been a huge problem for the contact center turned out to be an easy shift for Roni and human call agents.  “We were able to fully manage from home everything that is usually addressed from our physical call center offices,” said Pariz. “We are easily able to update Roni’s communications with new information as it becomes available. The transition took place in less than one day because of the ease with which Roni could handle the changes. Essentially, Roni is Vonage, and we simply would not be able to do this without Vonage.”

Pariz cited many reasons for choosing Vonage AI, but what made it their number one choice was the ability for Vonage AI to support a huge number of calls coming in at the same time, 24/7, with no waiting time for customers. Another significant factor was the measurable cost savings to his company.  “In the past we would need five support representatives to do the work for which only two are needed today.  That’s a lot of money saved.”

Pariz was emphatic in stating that Vonage AI provides a much better experience for Ronlight’s customers. “At the end of the day, fast and efficient service is something that differentiates us and keeps our customers loyal,” said Pariz.  

In that same vein, Pariz praises the high level of support that Ronlight has received from Vonage. “Our business is very dynamic and there’s a lot to keep up with.  We are continually launching products, there are changes in stores, and instances when some locations are open, and some of them closed.  All of this needs to be addressed by Roni and we need to be able to easily adjust along the way. For all the changes that are on-going, Vonage support is extremely flexible and responsive.”