Meet Ruby, DPD’s new digital assistant for consignees. Ruby is a self-learning chatbot and replaces ‘Phil’. Main difference: Ruby becomes smarter with time. From now on, thanks to this user-friendly chatbot, consignees will receive a spot-on answer to their question even quicker. 

Consignees receive best fit answers thanks to ‘smart’ chatbot

The fact that e-commerce exploded on the tailwind of the corona pandemic, is no secret. The numbers are here to confirm this: +5% in 2020 and +11% in 2021. Of course, in parallel with the growth of the number of online transactions, the expectations of e-shoppers become more significant too. Fast, fitting answers are increasingly becoming a must for consignees.

Our chatbot for sure lives up to these expectations, even more so now it has become self-learning.  As Ruby becomes more clever as time passes by, the chatbot is able to give answers that are a closer fit with the question. Moreover, we can adjust scenarios to comply with our customers’ needs. We even have the option to in the future link the chatbot to our CRM system or online shipping tool, so our clients can send their parcels via the chatbot – whereas today, the chatbot is solely targeted at consignees.

24 hours a day and 7 days a week online  

DPD’s revamped chatbot has been launched recently on the homepage of our website and can be used on desktops as well as mobile devices. In the right bottom corner, Ruby is available 24/7 to answer any question our clients might have. Questions can be entered in three ways: by typing, by clicking on one of the suggestions or even by speech.

Here are some examples: “My parcel has not been delivered”, “When will my parcel be delivered?” or “Where do I find a Pickup parcelshop?”. Ruby also is at hand to help change a delivery address or time. In such instances, the consignee is transferred to their myDPD app account (or on a PC to the myDPD app info page). Finding a Pickup parcelshop is easy when a consignee shares their location.

Should Ruby not be able to give an answer, the chat will not end without an actual solution – the customer will be redirected to an elaborate FAQ. However, since Ruby continues to learn, the latter doesn’t occur that often anymore. And Ruby will keep on becoming smarter in the future.