When Standard Solutions Aren't Enough

swb is a key part of everyday life in northern Germany and the cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven: electricity, natural gas, drinking water and heat. In addition, a wide range of technical services are provided and waste disposal is handled.

With over 170 years of customer service experience, swb approached botario to introduce a new digital self-service channel. The goal was to offer customers a simple way to resolve their enquiries independently, around the clock — from data changes to service requests.

"Of all the providers, botario was best tailored to our individual requirements and our specific challenge."

In a direct comparison with several providers, botario prevailed, as the platform impressed with its high flexibility and made it possible to implement even highly individual requirements in an enterprise environment.

At the same time, compliance with the highest data protection standards was a decisive factor — particularly for a company like swb, which operates in the energy sector with especially sensitive information such as personal data, addresses, consumption data and meter readings.

The successful implementation of the project was based on intensive collaboration: while botario contributed its technical expertise — particularly in backend system integration and solution delivery — swb's internal project team provided deep knowledge of business processes, requirements and specific use cases, as well as valuable insights into customer service.

The result of this collaboration is a chatbot on the website that supports customers with a wide range of service enquiries, 24/7.

The chatbot is today an established part of swb's digital customer centre and is available as an additional service channel directly on the website.

It enables customers to retrieve information on tariffs and services, report outages, submit meter readings, adjust instalment payments, and receive support with billing queries. It also answers questions about contracts and other matters relating to energy and telecommunications services.

What the swb project team particularly values about botario:

• The ability to manage and continuously optimise dialogues, logic and workflows independently

• The high degree of customisation through the integration of custom scripts (e.g. using Python code)

• The individually configurable dashboard with custom metrics for targeted analysis of relevant usage data

• Full access to chat histories for analysis and quality assurance

• The straightforward integration and connection of documents and company knowledge

• The ability to integrate live chat, enabling direct interaction with swb staff

After several years of successful partnership, botario and swb are already working together on further projects and new use cases, with the aim of providing swb's customers with an even better service experience.