Movida () hopes to triple its revenue from car rentals via WhatsApp with an artificial intelligence agent for customer service developed in an unprecedented global partnership with the technology giant Meta (). By the end of this year, the company projects revenue of R$300 million from the channel, compared to R$100 million in the last 12 months.
In full operation for three weeks, the technology allows customers to chat with the agent, capable of interacting using natural language, to explain their needs, see the available vehicle options, choose the car, define the rental period and receive the rental cost.
So far, the results are encouraging for the company: 85% of conversations between users and AI within WhatsApp were resolved within the channel itself. Conversions from interactions to rentals doubled in the three-week period so far and the average ticket was 6% higher compared to other channels.
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“In addition to being a fantastic communication and customer relationship channel, it has become a very important sales channel, which tends to gain representation in comparison with others”, said Movida CEO, Gustavo Moscatelli, at a lunch with journalists.
In the three weeks prior to the launch of the new functionality, Movida recorded an average of 12 thousand interactions via the WhatsApp channel. The operation was based on direct interactions with human attendants or via a chatbot with automated responses and without recording historical customer data.
Now, the number of interactions has jumped to 30 thousand in three weeks of using the new tool. The increase in adherence can be explained by the improvement in the objectivity of the responses. In a conversation in the style of generative artificial intelligence chats, such as ChatGPT, the agent already has historical data that allows the conversation to be personalized, such as age, marital status, number of children and even recent demonstrations of interest in traveling by the user.
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For Moscatelli, the channel could be the company’s cheapest rental conversion alternative so far. During the testing period, the rental cost via WhatsApp fell from 10% to 2% of the contract value, largely due to the better conversion capacity. “The agent uses fewer messages, the solution is faster, makes you convert more and the cost drops,” he says.
The agent was co-developed by Meta Business, the business solutions arm of the owner of Facebook and Instagram, with Movida, and , last week. According to the used car rental and sales company, this is the first of its kind developed by the company in the world.
Moscatelli says that the idea came from Movida’s own approach to big tech. While internally the Brazilian company was trying to improve its communication via WhatsApp, Meta was looking for a partner to carry out its agent project within its platform dedicated to corporate solutions.
When the rental company learned that a global technical team from the technology company would be in Brazil at the beginning of this year to look for candidates to develop the first WhatsApp agent for companies, Movida moved to fit in the visitors’ schedules.
The country would be an obvious candidate. Today, the application is on 99% of Brazilian smartphones and 80% of the population opens the messaging program at least once a day. At Movida, the channel had already been gaining share in interactions with consumers monthly over the last 18 months.
“We arranged an agenda with them for a Monday. From the previous Thursday until the day of the meeting, we put together a detailed project from a marketing point of view, impact on customer service for the business”, recalls Moscatelli. Movida would be chosen, together with Banco Itaú, Mercado Livre and Sem Parar, to develop, each of the companies, projects with Meta.
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Big tech sent 50 technicians to Brazil to work alongside six from Movida for two and a half months, until the launch of the agent for 100% of vehicle rental interactions made via WhatsApp by the company. Over the previous two weeks, the agent was gradually tested in early April on smaller user bases.
Although a large part of the rental process can be done via WhatsApp, from the first interaction to the quote, it is still not possible to pay the rental via the channel. That’s the next step. Movida works with Meta to develop facial recognition technology and registration of payment methods via digital wallet so that even the last step, currently carried out directly in stores, can also be carried out on WhatsApp.
