Ukrainian railway monopoly Ukrzaliznytsia has launched a chatbot to service its customers via popular mobile messenger apps, the company announced on Jan. 12.
Having the same name as the company, Ukrzaliznytsia, the bot can help people buy or return train tickets, check the timetable and even find the platform the train arrives at — all through Telegram and Viber. It supports Ukrainian, English and Russian languages.
Through the bot, Ukrzaliznytsia’s customers can also leave feedback about the quality of their ride. For example, they can complain about non-working WiFi or spoiled food.
Later on, people will also be able to use the bot to order food for the ride in advance and get notified if their train is delayed.
For now, the service supports only Intercity+ day trains. Currently, these trains cover 8 routes, including Kyiv to Lviv, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv and Odesa. Later, all types of trains, including night trains, will be serviced by the chatbot.
If bought through the chatbot, tickets can be paid for directly in the messenger via electronic wallets like Google Pay, Apple Pay and Viber Chatbot Payments.
On the first day, 17,000 people have used the Ukrzaliznytsia chatbot.
The company has developed the railway bot in collaboration with payment system company Visa and software firm Middleware. The bot is managed through Middleware’s system called Corezoid, the same technology used in Ukraine by companies like Nova Poshta, Allo, and Glovo to automate some of their business procedures, including communication with clients.
Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, a board member at Ukrzaliznytsia, said that the chatbot is particularly useful because of its feedback function — passengers can rate the ride, leave comments and share pictures.
“Our primary task is to receive and respond to our clients’ feedback,” Pertsovskyi said at a press-conference on Jan. 12. “A complaint is a gift for a service company.”
Oleksandr Yablunivskiy, vice president of Visa’s tech department in 17 countries, said that the company is also “discussing the possibility of ticket payment optimization” for suburban electric trains, called elektrichkas in Ukraine. “We aim to meet the needs of more demanding passengers,” Yablunivskiy said.
Serhiy Danylenko, Middleware marketing director, said his company had been discussing different projects with former Ukrzaliznytsia management for years. “But (only) when there is a motivated team, the projects are implemented quickly,” Danylenko said.
However, not everybody was excited about the news. In the comments to Ukrzaliznytsia’s post on Facebook, users wondered why Ukrzaliznytsia deleted its mobile application and rolled out the chatbot instead.
According to a Facebook user named Oleg Karpa, it was “easier” to buy tickets through the app. “Return it, please,” he said. User Ostap Ukrainets wrote that having one application would be more convenient than making people use “a bunch of messengers.”
The company removed its mobile application from stores in May 2020. Before the chatbot appeared, passengers could directly buy tickets only through the company’s website or at ticket offices.
For years before Ukrzaliznytsia launched its own bot, many Ukrainians had used another bot, Railwaybot, available on Telegram, Facebook Messenger, Viber and through an eponymous mobile app for Apple and Android phones.
Created by Ukrainian developer Anton Bibla in 2016, the bot helped search for train tickets and monitor their availability. Although people can’t buy tickets through Railwaybot, it can redirect users either to PrivatBank or Ukrzaliznytsia’s websites to pay for them.
Oleksandr Shevchenko, head of communications, marketing and passenger experience at Ukrzaliznytsia, says Ukrzaliznytsia needed its own bot. “Railwaybot isn’t Ukrzaliznytsia’s platform. We created our own chatbot to avoid extra fees and ‘redirections'” and create Ukrzaliznytsia’s own “tone of voice,” Shevchenko told the Kyiv Post.
“We didn’t want to create another conservative communication channel,” he said. “Our bot cracks jokes, gives explanations in simpler language, offers tickets to Hogwarts and even cites poems about the railway.”
Shevchenko also said that the company will launch a new mobile application by the end of 2021, which will be “the next step of the railway’s digitalization.”
Meanwhile, Ukrzaliznytsia plans to increase ticket prices by 2% every month starting in March, which, according to its own estimates, will bring the company $19 million in 2021.
Next year, the monopoly hopes to generate $126 million in net profit compared to just $2,500 received in 2020, Interfax-Ukraine reports, citing the company’s financial report.
As of Jan. 14, the company has yet to publish its complete financial report for 2020.
