On, which manufactures a line of athletic and running shoes, wanted to show its support for medical workers on the front line by offering them 50% off its classic collection in response to COVID-19. After one worker received the discount, slowly word traveled from nurse to nurse.

Soon, the Swiss-born company began getting many requests, which kicked off a campaign that went viral as healthcare workers began sharing the news in their internal medical newsletters, said Verena Strunk Wenzl, On’s global head of customer experience.

“The demand was a surprise,” she said. “We entered a completely new customer segments, healthcare workers. So many new customers who had never heard of us before. We had runners, but never nurses.” 

To apply for the discount, healthcare workers had to send in either their work ID or an email from their work address. And nearly 38,000 healthcare workers did so.

A few weeks after the promo began, order status and change inquiries increased by 3,200%, compared to their usual volume. Healthcare workers inquired about the status or needed to make changes to their orders. Ecommerce companies were experiencing, logistical and shipping issues related to the pandemic exacerbated the issue.

Strunk Wenzl reached out to DigitalGenius to help by building a website that would manage orders and demand through email and an automated system.

Chris Kellner, DigitalGenius global vice president of sales and partnerships, said the company has been working with On for some time. He saw tickets for new orders building in the platform. “We went from about zero cases to about 40,000 in a few weeks,” he said. “We were able to get something up and running within several days.”

On worked with DigitalGenius to implement an AI platform that could automatically reply to the majority of customers around this promotion in multiple languages. Placing an order required an ID number, which was another consideration the platform required.

Using DigitalGenius’ process automation platform and deep integrations with carriers, order management systems and CRMs, On was able to resolve 90% of order related inquiries automatically. DigitalGenius detects order inquiries, retrieves the detailed info in the order management system and replies to the customer with a personalized response.

Questions about refunds and exchanges also increased by 300%.

DigitalGenius has resolved 70% of these inquiries by tracking the return shipment and integrating with the warehouse. At the peak, DigitalGenius resolved about 78% of On’s inquires automatically.