With over 7 million online customers and more than 2 million users on OTTO.de every day, OTTO GmbH & Co. KG has been one of Germany’s most successful online retailers of fashion and lifestyle products. The company generates more than 90% of total sales through its award-winning online shops. From the start, OTTO has put a strong focus on high-quality customer service.

OTTO’s customer service teams had usually used email and direct calls to handle delivery status queries, account management requests, questions about customers’ personal account balances or complaints about defective products. However, the ecommerce company wanted to open a direct dialogue with customers by providing a user-friendly channel that they could use to immediately access the customer service team.

By using the WhatsApp Business API via the software provider novomind, OTTO was able to implement the services in a short period of time. Both companies had partnered before to set up a dedicated webchat service based on the novomind iAgent, both on the website and in the app. Thanks to this existing webchat service, novomind was able to maintain the look and feel of WhatsApp, as well as its functions.

OTTO officially launched its WhatsApp service on November 20, 2018. New teams of about 100 customer service agents were trained and set up in the customer service centres to handle WhatsApp requests.

Customers can access OTTO’s WhatsApp service in 2 ways. During the account creation process, new customers were asked if they wanted to be contacted via WhatsApp and gave their consent accordingly. Existing customers could start a conversation with OTTO’s customer agents by initiating a service request through the OTTO website.

With WhatsApp, OTTO’s customer service agents were able to interact with people in a direct and personal manner, thereby resolving issues much faster. OTTO also observed that people responded to messages more quickly via WhatsApp than by other methods, such as phone or email.