As one of Germany‘s largest retail companies, excellent customer service is of strategic importance to Tchibo GmbH. Customer contact takes place not only in around 900 retail stores internationally, but increasingly also via digital and telephone channels. The German-language telephone hotline is a central point of contact for customers from across the DACH region. It receives over 2,400 calls every day. “Our hotline is a direct and highly frequented interface with our customers. Accordingly, we have very high quality standards here,” explains Eyvelin Lampe, Director of Consumer Satisfaction at Tchibo.

Against this backdrop, Tchibo pursued three clear goals: first, to further increase customer satisfaction by replacing rigid IVR selection menus with natural, dialog-based interaction. IVR menus can lead to misunderstandings and, in some cases, cause unnecessary loops if the selected option does not immediately lead to the right contact person. Second, processing times were to be shortened and employees relieved of routine tasks. In particular, this included identification and authentication, so that they ould focus even more on customer concerns. Third, identification was to be carried out in strict compliance with data protection regulations and in accordance with Tchibo‘s high standards.

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Tchibo GmbH has been working successfully with IP Dynamics since 2015. Among other things, the long-established company uses a contact center including monitoring and quality management solutions from IP Dynamics. Against this backdrop, the decision was made to launch a joint pilot project to further optimize customer service.

As part of its company-wide digitalization strategy, Tchibo has implemented an innovative voicebot solution with the help of IP Dynamics. The bot “Voicy” recognizes callers‘ concerns using natural language. These may include, for example, queries about orders, complaints, or returns. The AI-based concern recognition was trained in strict compliance with data protection guidelines based on curated text sets, some of which were derived from anonymized customer interactions. Thanks to its installation within the IPD Private Cloud, no sensitive data is processed via global public cloud providers; Tchibo‘s high data protection requirements are guaranteed at all times.

After recognizing the concern, “Voicy” automatically identifies and authenticates the caller in a manner that complies with data protection regulations. This is done on the basis of the telephone number, an entered customer number, and the verification of relevant data fields from the customer master data. The caller is then directed to the appropriate employee. The colleagues responsible for customer service at Tchibo are appropriately called brand ambassadors. Thanks to comprehensive monitoring and reporting, Tchibo has a constant overview of both current and historical voicebot data. Based on this data, “Voicy” can be continuously optimized and further developed.

“Our collaboration with IP Dynamics has been extremely trusting and constructive for many years,” reports Eyvelin Lampe. “In this respect, the decision to jointly roll out ‘Voicy’ was very easy for us.”

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In August 2025, “Voicy” went live for the entire DACH region. Today, all incoming calls to the customer hotline go through AI-supported issue recognition, identification, and authentication. The majority of all customer issues are recognized immediately, allowing callers to be connected to a suitable brand ambassador more quickly. This reduces the transfer rate in the long term and ensures that calls are routed to the right experts. A noticeable contribution to higher customer satisfaction.

By taking over identification and other basic queries, Voicy relieves the burden on brand ambassadors, allowing them to focus more on value-adding work. This has measurably improved the quality of customer conversations. At the same time, the average duration of customer conversations has been reduced by up to 30 seconds per call, as all basic information is captured in advance by “Voicy”. Consistent, automated identification also ensures that data protection requirements are met at all times.

“Voicy” is connected to Tchibo‘s inventory system via an interface. This means that brand ambassadors have all the recorded data available in a clear, transparent format at the start of the conversation. Eyvelin Lampe looks back on a successful project: “The voicebot has been very well accepted by all parties and has resulted in a measurable improvement in customer service for us.”

With this project, Tchibo has laid the foundation for the sustainable, scalable development of its customer service. Plans for the future include further increasing the level of automation by expanding selfservice options. This will allow simple requests to be resolved fully automatically and without direct interaction with a brand ambassador. Customers will benefit from even faster processes and an intuitive, natural service experience.