Zimpapers Logo

Business Reporter

ECOCASH, Zimbabwe’s leading mobile money platform and a subsidiary of EcoCash Holdings, has introduced an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot, or smart assistant, called ‘Thembie’ in a bid to improve its customer experience.

EcoCash’s chief operating officer, Munyaradzi Nhamo, said the launch of Thembie was driven by the company’s desire to add more communication channels to support its customers and improve the overall customer experience.

“The aim is to constantly improve the customer experience of our clients by offering yet another channel they can use to easily reach us whenever they need support for any of our products and services,” he said.

The new selfcare chatbot intuitively addresses customer queries on WhatsApp without the need to physically visit a shop or to phone a call centre, thereby giving customers greater choice and convenience.

“Customer behavioural patterns have shown us that customers want to engage with brands over channels of their choice. It was therefore important for us to offer this solution in order to increase customers’ support options and channels,” said Mr Nhamo.

“Thembie is mainly conversation-based and is highly interactive, allowing customers to carry out a normal conversation,” he said, adding that the chatbot can carry out a variety of tasks, ranging from customer onboarding, financial transactions as well as self-help services.