Customer story
Lenovo
The world's largest PC company reduced inbound call center costs by 35% — while raising customer satisfaction — by moving support to WhatsApp with Bird.
Sector
Consumer electronics
Channels
Headline
35% lower call center costs
The challenge
A messaging-first support experience that couldn't bend to Lenovo's vision.
Headquartered in China and operating worldwide, Lenovo is a multinational technology company specializing in consumer electronics and hardware, with $70 billion in revenue and the largest personal computer vendor by unit sales globally. In an intensely competitive industry, Lenovo wanted top-tier customer support to be a competitive differentiator — letting its tech-savvy customers engage through preferred messaging platforms like WhatsApp for real-time assistance.
Lenovo had rolled out a new messaging-first customer experience with a vendor, but it didn't offer the flexibility and customization the team needed to deliver a next-level experience. Lenovo wanted to build more complex, customized scenarios the legacy vendor couldn't deliver — such as integrating with backend systems to pull customer repair status information and give updates. On a personal recommendation from a reputable multinational IT conglomerate, Lenovo selected Bird to help achieve that vision.
The solution
A seamless migration, then three new WhatsApp experiences.
The first step was migrating Lenovo's existing WhatsApp channel without customer disruption or changes to Lenovo's website or documentation. Bird managed the migration while keeping Lenovo's WhatsApp number intact, which meant zero customer downtime. With the migration complete, Lenovo focused on three key customer experiences.
- Interactive voice response (IVR) deflection. Lenovo introduced IVR deflection via WhatsApp, giving callers the option to switch to a WhatsApp conversation instead of waiting on hold. Customers resolved issues quickly through a chatbot or live agent, reducing hold times — and agents grew more productive by focusing on fewer, more complex issues without simple, repetitive ones competing for their time.
- Repair status updates.By integrating Bird's Flows product with Lenovo's repair tracking system, Lenovo created an interactive, two-way messaging experience that let customers request and receive repair updates in real time via WhatsApp — keeping anxious customers informed and preventing call volumes from spiking.
- Issue troubleshooting with a virtual assistant.Lenovo again used Bird's Flows product to integrate its existing IBM Watson-powered virtual assistant, “Lena,” with WhatsApp. Customers could chat about an issue, have it diagnosed by Lena, get solutions via troubleshooting videos, and escalate to a live agent when a more hands-on approach was needed.
The results
Lower costs, higher satisfaction, fast adoption.
Using Bird products and WhatsApp as a key part of its multi-channel support strategy, Lenovo served nearly half a million customers on its WhatsApp Customer Support channel within the first eight months of partnering with Bird — far exceeding the team's engagement expectations. By shifting support from traditional phone calls to WhatsApp, Lenovo cut inbound call center costs by 35% and freed call center resources to focus on more complex issues, while 67% of customers reported being “extremely satisfied” with their WhatsApp experience.
35%
Reduction in inbound call center costs after shifting support to WhatsApp.
450K
Customers served on the WhatsApp Customer Support channel in the first eight months.
67%
Of customers reported being “extremely satisfied” with their experience.
What's next
Expanding the channels and the use cases.
Based on the success of this first set of customer service initiatives, Lenovo has planned several new initiatives with Bird — including expanding its customer support channels to include Messenger, and executing new customer support experiences like product registration and automating warranty claims processing.
Carry-forward reference from bird.com. Metrics and named quotes reported by Lenovo.
Build support experiences on the same network.
Migrate WhatsApp without downtime, then automate with Flows. A test API key is yours immediately.