“The Magic Software solution is the best suited for the technical needs of a company our size. It enables us to integrate all types of flows and APIs easily, with excellent data management and great speed. It’s extremely fluid and efficient.
Christophe Michot, CTO at Generali Concierge Services
About Generali Concierge Services
In 2003, just over 20 years ago, Europe Assistance (part of the Generali group) launched its first concierge services center in France. At the time, it was dedicated to Visa Infinite cardholders, and was aimed at all banking establishments. In 2016, the Europe Assistance group took another step forward and created Generali Concierge Services, a 100% subsidiary of the group. By 2023, the company will have 120 employees, including 90 concierges / Lifestyle advisors. It boasts a solid financial base, and has recognized expertise in the service professions and mastery of the latest high-end digital relational tools.
The Challenge
In 2020, Generali Concierge Services launched the deployment of a Bot, a conversational agent in charge of real-time dialogue with its customers. “It was an innovative move – we wanted this Bot to be able to respond to our high-end customers’ requests automatically, without the help of a Lifestyle advisor,” explains Christophe Michot, CTO at Generali Concierge Services. “There were several challenges, as we wanted this conversational agent to be able to converse in natural language with our customers. We focused our efforts on three main paths: restaurant search, rental car search and tourist activity.”
The Solution
Following a previous positive contact with Generali Concierge Services, Magic Software, a publisher of software platforms for digital transformation (development, integration) since 1983, was approached in 2020. “We were looking for a technical solution that would adapt to our innovative project, and in particular to the size of our company,” explains Christophe Michot. The challenge was to ensure that the Generali Concierge Service Bot could draw on as much data as possible from restaurants, car rental companies and, more generally, cultural platforms available on the market. “Once queried, our conversational agent had to contact a number of APIs in order to process the request in real time. This meant setting up business rules to meet the criteria of Premium Concierge in order to produce the best results.”
Results that are closely linked to a specific technical capability – the capture of a large amount of data directly from data providers. “We didn’t want to retrieve data upstream and store it in a static database,” recalls Christophe Michot. “What was needed was a query carried out in real time, which was complex because it depended heavily on exchanges between different systems, which generally have difficulty coordinating with each other.”
This is where Magic Software comes in. Its middleware generates the right queries on demand, and delivers the best results for every Generali Concierge Service customer.
The Results
Magic Software’s xpi platform met the expectations of Christophe Michot’s teams.
Magic xpi provides:
- A strong capacity to integrate all types of data flows and APIs in a simple and agile way
- The availability of predefined connectors, similar to Salesforce connectors
- An interface that’s easy to manage in terms of data flows
- A high level of speed, i.e. the technical capacity to receive a request and browse customer databases as quickly as possible.
“Magic Software’s solution is ideal for capturing data and orchestrating requests,” says Christophe Michot. “Thanks to Magic xpi, the service runs fast and adapts to all types of data.
In the end, the Magic Software solution proved to be best suited to the needs of Generali Concierge Services. “The product is affordable, even for a company like ours, where each expense is significant“, concludes Christophe Michot. “Above all, it’s practical and agile – we haven’t encountered any technical limitations in use. As for communication with the Magic Software teams, I have to say that it’s excellent. We talk to each other; it’s fluid and we solve all problems without the slightest hint of tension. This allows us to work optimally together.»
