UK SME, offering artificial intelligence chatbot software for automation of customer & citizen services impacted by COVID, offers licensing/joint venture agreement to partners in Austria, Ireland, Germany, and Switzerland

This UK SME (based in South Wales) designs and implements artificial intelligence (AI) software solutions for customer service automation purposes. The AI solutions are delivered via online chatbots and voice assistants designed to address and respond to customer enquiries which may arise when visiting a website. The company currently works with a range of public sector and higher educational organisations, as well as, utility and transport companies across England and Wales. The core team consists of software engineers, data scientists, and sales specialists involved in AI and automation for over 10 years – with a further 3 years’ experience working with public sector clients. Most organisations providing some level of citizen/customer service have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and seek cost-saving alternatives to mitigate additional risks to the business. Unfortunately, customer service advisors and departments have suffered as a result, impacting a customer’s experience on a website and leading to an increase in inefficiently addressed calls and emails. The AI solution on offer can help address this customer service limitation organisations currently face and help automate operations. Recent examples of effective chatbot platforms include automation of citizen services associated with refuse collections, recycling, parking permits, council tax and school openings. The platform utilises a built in, proprietary natural language processing (NLP) engine with no dependency on third parties. It offers a proactive outreach mechanism which allows members of an organisation to contact customers based on past interactions and data collected from conversations. This configurable software provides a highly automated, cost-effective digital solution to companies facing increasing levels of customer service demand, job cuts, or staff shortages as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The offering client aims to partner with mid to large sized SMEs/large industry organisations from Austria, Ireland, Germany, and Switzerland, that supply compatible products or professional services to public sector, government, education, health or mid-large sized enterprises to become value-added solution partners or commission-only sales partners. Partners will be sales and/or solution partners in order to drive local sales as well as, support platform implementation to suit customer’s needs and operations. Ideal partners will also have some expertise in digital automation/artificial intelligence systems. A licensing agreement is sought because partners will bring a wealth of regional/national knowledge in target application sectors and organisations that could significantly benefit from an automated AI solution to improve customer service operations impacted by COVID-19. Similarly, a joint venture agreement is sought as the offering client would be willing to set up a new company to facilitate the efficient implementation of this AI solution within the partner’s market/country. The client aims to build an experienced network of quality sales and solution partners across these markets in order to help companies affected by the COVID-19 pandemic deliver high quality, automated services as a result of international partnership.