Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks makes vacations brighter with the help of AI

When it comes to family vacations, people like to try out different places. That’s why Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks, a family-run resorts company in the United Kingdom, needs to regularly convert new customers. To do that, its staff needs to respond to queries quickly, consistently, and confidently. 

But that can be difficult with a large, seasonal, and dispersed staff. The business had relied on a solution from Genesis Software Systems that sounded great, but the vendor failed to deliver on the services it promised, including conversational AI, leaving Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks agents in the lurch when things got busy. 

After too many frustrations and empty promises from Genesis, Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks turned to Freshworks to deliver AI-powered, omnichannel support. With Freshworks Customer Service Suite, customers can reach out over any channel they prefer and get answers faster than ever with Freddy Self Service’s conversational chatbots. On the back end, the Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks team now has a unified view showing all communications received over self-service, digital, and traditional channels. Freddy Copilot features like instant summaries, tone enhancement, and rephrase suggestions improved interactions and boosted agent productivity. The all-in-one solution has helped the support team reduce resolution time by 15%.

The company

Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks is a family-run business operating three award-winning family holiday resorts in the south of England. As a seasonal business, the company employs a year-round staff of roughly 200, growing to 500 during peak season.

The challenge

At Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks, churn is just a part of doing business. While customers often return for years, the family-oriented nature of the parks means they generally age out after around five years—their children grow older, or they decide to explore a new region. In order to tempt new customers, agents need to convey a unified, inviting tone. 

That became more difficult when the company decided to move its customer service agents from a single call center to reception centers at each park. The switch put customers closer to the action, but the now-dispersed support team lacked full customer context and a consistent tone, especially in written communication like email and chat. And Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks staff were much more comfortable with phone inquiries, but most of the customers wanted to connect by email or chat.

For six years, the company used Genesis Software Systems in the hopes that it would offer help with these challenges. But, as Sales Team Manager Keira Hayter says, “They overpromised and underdelivered with the software.” Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks had been told that conversational chat would help them improve consistency, but it was never implemented.

That’s when Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks started looking for a new omnichannel solution that could offer AI chatbots and AI-powered tools to help customers self-serve, while improving the quality of responses. The company also aimed to make agents more productive and improve efficiency across its three locations.

The solution

When Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks learned about Freshworks’ omnichannel, AI-powered customer service solution, says Hayter, “we knew we would be in safe hands.” The all-in-one solution provided agents with tools for conversational and ticketing support, increasing productivity, reducing friction, and improving communication across locations.

The company switched to Freshworks Customer Service Suite to increase agent productivity and improve customer satisfaction. With Freddy Self Service, Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks is able to resolve customer issues automatically through chatbots on social media channels.

Freddy Copilot, an AI-powered coach, also helps teams by rephrasing messages, enhancing tone, and suggesting next steps. And it was just what Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks needed. Its customer service team was comfortable on the phone but not used to communicating with customers over digital channels. With Freddy, every agent has an AI-powered assistant ready to help craft messages or speed up routine processes. When Hayter looked at the options, three features of Freddy Copilot stood out:

• Tone Enhancer: With just a few clicks, agents can change the tone of their messages to match the needs of the customer

• Rephraser: Agents give simple prompts and AI converts them into a longer, more formal message, saving time and keeping quality standards high

• Summarizer: This quick view of a conversation, summed up by Freddy, speeds up handoffs to others in the organization

Together, Hayter thought that Freshworks’ AI-powered, omnichannel solution, built on Neo Platform and powered by AWS, could help its dispersed customer service team stick to a unified tone and seamlessly collaborate across locations. “We saw AI features like Tone Enhancer and Rephraser and thought: ‘This could really help our agents thrive,’” says Hayter.

Impact

With Freshworks Customer Service Suite, Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks staff feel more confident in communicating over digital channels. Over the past six months, Freddy Copilot usage has more than doubled, with agents turning to these features to help almost 2,000 customers.

That means holiday customers are getting their answers faster than ever. 83% of customers have been redirected from phone calls to low-cost digital channels, allowing agents to answer queries more efficiently with the help of AI features. Average resolution time has dropped by nearly 70%, from 33 minutes to just 10 minutes. That’s better than 90% of similar businesses.

The confidence boost that came from Freddy’s AI-powered conversational features has helped with agent satisfaction, which has increased 25%. With Freddy, Hayter says, Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks staff can be in three different locations but still respond in the same tone with the same consistency.

“I had team members who weren’t comfortable at all with emails,” says Hayter. “With Freddy AI, they’ve gained so much confidence, and the quality of emails they’re sending now is remarkable.”