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One of our first customers, the Varna Regional Library “Pencho Slaveikov” has a double celebration today. The library turns 139 years old and their smart digital librarian, the AI chatbot Ellie has a birthday too. Happy Birthday to the library team and to Ellie!
Ellie’s case is very interesting. The library team worked for several months to make sure Ellie knows the answers to the customer questions and provide them with automatic assistance for several key tasks before meeting the chatbot with the library customers. Ellie’s introduction was planned for March’20 and it happened together with the beginning of the pandemic when the library closed for 13 weeks (25% of the entire working time for the year). It was a great stress test for the AI chatbot, and the results were more than satisfying:
1. Ellie automated and handled 23% of the borrowed materials reassignments in 2020, and 12% in 2021 when the library already had new procedures for its customers with regard to the pandemic and the number of questions and inquiries has declined in general. This turned out to be one of the most successful functionalities of Ellie.
2. Ellie became the irreplaceable assistant during the lockdowns of the library and covered the increased number of customers inquiries outside of the hours of operations. 34% of the library customers used the chatbot for assistance between 18:00 and 8:00 in 2020, and the number increased in 2021 to 42%. According to the library team, the customers became used to the chatbot and its functionalities.
3. For its time of service, Ellie has learned to answer over 14000 customer questions being trained directly by the library team on the Umni’s platform and has saved over 30 working days’ time for the library staff.
According to library Director Radka Kalcheva, Ellies’ implementation has become an ideal tool for increasing the interest of the readership and the authority of the library.
Check the digital librarian Ellie case study here
