What challenges did Walgreens Boots Alliance face before AI implementation?

Make healthcare and pharmacy websites more responsive to customer needs. Reduce call-center burden and help customers find care and common information quickly during COVID-19.

What was the impact of the AI solution?

The COVID-19 response chatbot went into production in less than a week. The Boots.com bot had nearly 2,500 interactions in its first 24 hours. The Find Care bot quickly racked up thousands of uses.

Source

MicrosoftEvidence: Medium50/100

Walgreens Boots Alliance enhances online healthcare and customer support experience

Use case typeCustomer service automationUpdated Apr 30, 2020

Walgreens Boots Alliance added chatbot technology to Walgreens.com and Boots.com to make websites more responsive to customer needs. The company used Microsoft Healthcare Bot service for a COVID-19 risk assessment bot on Walgreens Find Care and Microsoft Bot Framework for a pharmacy Q&A bot on Boots.com.

Organization: Walgreens Boots Alliance
Industry: Healthcare
Location: United States
Published: April 2020

Reported outcomes

Deployment time: Less than 7 days

Time & speed

Boots bot interactions in first 24 hours: 2,500 interactionsFind Care bot usage: 1,000 uses

Why do we believe this?Outcome claims, sources, and evidence checks

Normalized claim

Deployment time: 7 days decrease

Microsoft Customer StoriesApr 30, 2020Customer storyExplicit claimMedium evidence strength

“we were able to put our COVID-19 response chatbot into production in less than a week once we decided to move forward with it.”

Normalized claim

Boots bot interactions in first 24 hours: 2,500 interactions increase

Microsoft Customer StoriesApr 30, 2020Customer storyExplicit claimMedium evidence strength

“The initial response from customers was great, with nearly 2,500 interactions in just the first 24 hours.”

Normalized claim

Find Care bot usage: 1,000 uses increase

Microsoft Customer StoriesApr 30, 2020Customer storyInferred claimMedium evidence strength

“The Risk Assessment bot quickly racked up thousands of uses”

Why do we believe this deployment?Customer identity, provider attribution, maturity, and source checks

Customer: Walgreens Boots Alliance
Provider: Microsoft
Maturity: Unknown
Linked source: Microsoft Customer Stories

No explicit deployment-stage evidence found.

Customer identity supportedSource describes one deploymentMaturity evidence evaluated

Primary read

Use case focus

Showing 2 of 2

1Customer service automation
2Conversational support

Built a COVID-19 Risk Assessment bot with Microsoft Healthcare Bot service on the Walgreens Find Care webpage.
Built a general question-and-answer bot with Microsoft Bot Framework, Azure Bot Service, and QnA Maker for Boots.com pharmacy support.
Used Azure analytics to monitor questions and update bot behavior quickly.

Technologies

Microsoft Healthcare Bot service Microsoft Bot Framework Azure Bot Services QnA Maker Azure Cognitive Services

The COVID-19 response chatbot went into production in less than a week.
The Boots.com bot had nearly 2,500 interactions in its first 24 hours.
The Find Care bot quickly racked up thousands of uses.

Architecture

WBA used Microsoft Azure as its cloud platform of choice. The solution included Microsoft Healthcare Bot service for the Walgreens Find Care COVID-19 risk assessment bot, Microsoft Bot Framework and Azure Bot Service for the Boots.com pharmacy bot, QnA Maker as part of Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure analytics for monitoring usage and updating bot logic. The Healthcare Bot service and Bot Framework were used to build and deploy compliant conversational healthcare experiences at scale.

Sources & evidence1

Evidence: Medium50/100Evidence strength