Silmäasema is part of the Coronaria Group and Finland’s leading expert in vision care and eye health. Its extensive service network serves more than one million customers every year.
Silmäasema wanted to improve its customer service and digital customer experience by leveraging AI. Rather than developing a single point solution, the aim was to build a solid foundation for broader use of AI as part of the digital customer journey.
One of the first use cases was found in customer service. The aim was to make support available around the clock, help customers find the right appointment booking service, and gain a deeper understanding of customer needs.
An intelligent and always-available AI assistant
Codemate was selected as a partner from among several competitors based on a compelling solution proposal and a track record of successful collaboration, including the OmaSilmä app.
Silmäasema took a phased approach to adopting AI. Together with Codemate, the company introduced Silmäbotti on its website – an AI assistant that answers common questions in natural language and guides customers to the right service or online appointment booking. Following positive initial experiences, the pilot, which started on the customer service pages, was quickly expanded across the entire website.
Silmäbotti was the first AI-related project within Silmäasema’s customer service, so our partner’s expertise was particularly important to us.
Erika Eskola, Customer Service Manager, Silmäasema
Empowering business teams to shape the AI assistant
Silmäasema’s customer service team actively participated in designing the AI assistant and now serves as the primary users of Silmäbotti on Codemate’s Paimen AI platform.
With an easy-to-use management tool, the team can monitor conversations for quality assurance, expand the knowledge base, and fine-tune responses as part of their day-to-day work – without separate, resource-intensive software development projects. Analyzing conversation history also continuously provides valuable information about customers’ most common questions and the points along their journeys where they need additional support.
We see AI first and foremost as a tool that helps us better understand our customers’ needs and develop our services based on data. The role of AI is not to replace people, but to support both our customers and our experts.
Erika Eskola, Customer Service Manager, Silmäasema
Results and business impact
Silmäbotti made AI a natural part of Silmäasema’s digital customer service. For customers, this means immediate assistance regardless of the time of day, easier access to information, and quick guidance to online appointment booking.
The most important business impact, however, happened behind the scenes: ownership of AI and its development moved directly into the hands of Silmäasema’s business and customer service teams.
With the Paimen AI platform, Silmäasema’s experts can respond quickly to customer needs without coding skills or dependency on external software development projects. The accumulated conversation data provides Silmäasema with concrete insights into customer needs to support ongoing service development.
Data drives customer experience and business development
Conversation data helps improve the AI assistant’s responses but also gives Silmäasema direct visibility into what customers are looking for on the website. The resulting customer insight creates a foundation for both refining the existing customer journey and identifying new business opportunities.
- AI in the team’s own hands: Customer service and business teams can develop, test, and expand the AI assistant’s knowledge base as part of their day-to-day work without adding to the IT department’s workload.
- Genuine customer insight from conversation data: Conversation history reveals friction points along customer journeys, the most common questions, and customers’ actual information needs.
- New opportunities and services: Beyond addressing friction points, the data highlights emerging demand trends. If enough customers ask about products or services that are not yet available, this feedback can directly inform the development of new offerings.
- Continuous customer experience development: The collected data can be used to refine existing digital services and website content to better meet customer expectations.
- Only the beginning of the AI journey: Silmäbotti is the first concrete step, creating a solid foundation for broader use of AI in the future.
- Smooth, around-the-clock service: Customers can get answers 24/7, helping them access services faster and guiding them to the right expert or online appointment booking.
- Focus on high-value expert work: With AI handling routine inquiries, Silmäasema’s customer service representatives can focus on situations where personal interaction and expertise provide the greatest value.
The first step toward a broader AI strategy
Silmäbotti is part of the long-standing collaboration between Silmäasema and Codemate, characterized by smooth cooperation, open dialogue, and a shared commitment to developing solutions around the needs of Silmäasema’s customers.
The use of AI will continue to expand step by step in areas where it creates the most value for both customers and experts. The goal is not to replace people with AI, but to support Silmäasema’s experts and provide customers with an even smoother service experience.
Working with Codemate has been extremely smooth. We have been able to genuinely develop the solution together, and the collaboration has been practical, agile, and consistently moved things forward.
Erika Eskola, Customer Service Manager, Silmäasema
