Reduce after-sales service requests by 83% using SMS
Plug’Heur is a white-label service for lending portable smartphone batteries.
Stands are available at their partners’ supermarkets, shopping centres and sports halls. The loan process is facilitated by SMS.
+1,5M
USES IN 2 YEARS
-83%
OF AFTER-SALES REQUESTS
À PROPOS
A French start-up created in 2021, Plug'Heur offers its 150 BtoB customers white-label smartphone charging stations. Their solution has been installed in top retailers in France and Spain.
COMPANY SIZE
11 employees
CREATION DATE
2019
LOCATION
France
Spain
Download the Plug'Heur success story
offer a seamless customer experience
Switch from email to SMS
Plug’Heur designed the whole battery loan experience around digital technology. After scanning the qrcode that redirects to a web page with the partner brand and activating the battery release via an OTP, the user is then informed and reassured at each stage of the loan process via SMS.
A combination of informative SMS is sent as end-of-loan alerts (4 hours before, 1 hour before, at time T and based on 12 hours after its expiry) but also, and above all, at the end of the rental period. The whole process is automatically implemented in their back office and connected via API to the smsmode routing service©.
People needed reassurance, particularly when it came time to drop off the battery. SMS proved to be the most effective way of communicating this information.
SMS was not adopted when Plug’Heur was launched. With the initial product, this information was sent by email. However, as emails were not widely read, the Plug’Heur team reviewed its notification strategy and switched to another channel. This is part of a wider effort to remove all the disincentives from user experience. Alongside with the abandonment of the mobile application and the bank guarantee, substituting email gave them a simple and much more considered means of eliminating all points of friction and thus making the loan experience smoother.
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- more read than an email
- weak network inside certain shopping malls
extend the time spent at the physical point of sale
Cell phones can do a lot of things...
Plug’Heur’s objective in replacing email with SMS is twofold. On the one hand, SMS is an important means of communication, particularly at the crucial moment of battery return. Plug’Heur used to receive a lot of messages “did the battery return work?". Since the introduction of SMS, customer support requests have simply been r reduced by 83%.
SMS and mobile phones can be used to bring digital into the physical shopping experience and make it an integral part of it.
SMS is also part of the enhanced service experience that Plug’Heur stands offer retailers (with the ultimate aim of increasing sales). According to several studies, 18% of French who run out of mobile phone batteries leave the shop without finishing their purchase, whereas customers who use a phone recharging service can stay 29% longer and spend 40% more than those who don’t use it. This is a real response to the challenges of retention, loyalty, growth and post-Covid re-enchantment of the in-store experience (with shopping centres at the top of the list).
Proof that the use of mobile phones and mobile messaging have an eminent place in the customer journey in the phygital era. It even represents growth potential for retailers, which Plug’Heur is keen to exploit through its solution and new projects. To be continued...