Inside City-Drop's bet on AI-powered customer service

Out of 10,000 calls received per month, including those from prospects, the AI agent built by volubile.ai handles more than 25% of them. "That's already huge," says the rental company's co-founder, Frédéric Dubois.

Utility van rentals, car dealerships, debt collection, AI agents are becoming essential. At City-Drop, a specialist in connected utility van rentals, Frédéric Dubois quickly realized AI could help with operations monitoring and improving the customer experience. The co-founder of the Suresnes-based company explains why volubile.ai was brought on for the project and how it delivers a service his team values.

Berlin to Dijon, in a free-floating vehicle?

Frédéric Dubois: City-Drop is a European mobility solution offering self-service (free-floating) vehicles. The customer journey is fully digitized: booking on our website, downloading the app to locate the vehicle, unlock it, retrieve the keys, and complete a trip, whether in France or abroad. We offer 16,000 routes across Europe. You can rent a van in Malaga, in Berlin, and drive from Berlin to Dijon, because our vehicles circulate freely across Europe. It's as much a mobility solution as a rental service. And since we have deals starting at €1, what we call our "good deal" offer, we're able to relocate vehicles without relying on professional carriers. It's a win-win: our customers get a vehicle at a lower cost, and we manage our fleet flow.

Why an AI conversational agent?

F.D.: 20% of our 10,000 monthly inbound calls are handled entirely by Emma, which is considerable. When Emma's response isn't a good enough fit for the customer, she transfers the call to our in-house customer support team. Emma never sleeps, speaks several languages, and can therefore take on complex tasks with unmatched availability and processing cost. In our business, digitization and automation are absolutely vital levers for profitability and performance. So we looked right away at what AI could bring to this area, tomorrow, it might even be able to issue commands like unlocking the truck...

Why keep a call center and support desk running?

F.D.: About twenty staff members are assigned to customer support, handling 75% of calls, not because Emma can't handle them, but simply because some customers are still reluctant to interact with an AI agent, even though they're a customer base that's very comfortable with technology and apps. Or, and this covers most cases, they're customers who don't have a reservation. Calls from prospects are handled 100% by our team, not AI, that's a rule we've set for ourselves: someone who isn't yet a customer needs to become one.

How did you operate before Emma?

F.D.: Before, we were receiving up to 10,000 calls a month. Bringing Emma on board led us to delay some of the hiring we had originally planned.

Why volubile.ai?

F.D.: I received an email from Stéphanie Delestre a little over a year ago now, and it happened quite naturally. I looked into it, obviously, we tested it, and I was quickly put in touch with Sébastien, our dedicated account manager. They did significant groundwork beforehand, remarkable and absolutely essential work, because the precision and quality of execution in processing a call, understanding its meaning, and the tasks that follow have to be flawless and tailored to your business. Once that phase and the launch were behind us, day-to-day fine-tuning became the key to improving the service. One of City-Drop's team members listens to the conversations every day and flags any improvements to be made.

How would you describe the service and support volubile.ai provides?

F.D.: Honestly, one word comes to mind: fluidity. I'd add responsiveness and commitment. Right before this interview, I was on a call with Sébastien from 9:00 to 9:30, and things are going very well with him. Recently, we had some GDPR concerns, my lawyer and our legal department were asking for all sorts of clarifications. I mentioned it to him, and they got to work on it immediately. They're agile, like us, human-scale. And I think agility is the key to success today.

Why did you start this company, and what was your path before founding it?

F.D.: Ah, that's a great question. I was a traditional rental operator and independent franchisee with ADA Location, running several agencies in the Paris region. At the agency, we got a huge number of requests from customers for one-way trips, not to mention the endless waiting they'd face on-site. And frankly, we had no real solution to offer. We'd send a driver to pick up the truck wherever it had been dropped off, a solution that was neither economical nor eco-friendly. Together with my partners Christophe Gerbeaud and Felix Nguyen, we realized there was a niche there. In 2014, we founded City-Drop, initially focused solely on one-way trips. Three years ago, we launched our round-trip offering. Out of 4,500 trips per month, we only use outside carriers to bring vehicles back in 6% of cases. 94% of our trips are completed by our own users.

Interview by Manuel Jacquinet.

Cover photo, City-Drop vehicle © Edouard Jacquinet