Club Med’s WhatsApp AI cuts response times by 3.5 hours

Club Med’s Global Chief Data and AI Officer, Siddhartha Chatterjee, has detailed the company’s comprehensive conversational AI strategy in a new Forrester interview, revealing how the travel operator achieved 30% full automation of customer interactions within three months of launching its WhatsApp-based AI assistant. The initiative demonstrates how enterprises can successfully scale AI-powered customer service across multiple markets while maintaining high satisfaction rates and operational efficiency.

What you should know: Club Med’s conversational AI journey began with a bold WhatsApp integration in Brazil, where nearly 80% of customers use the platform for business inquiries.

• The company achieved 30% full automation and 50% partial automation of customer interactions within three months of launch.
• Average first response time on WhatsApp dropped by 3.5 hours, from 4-6 hours to just 30-40 minutes.
• AI responses are delivered in 4-5 seconds with 95% accuracy, boosting customer satisfaction rates to 85%.

How it works: Club Med employs a sophisticated multi-agent AI system that divides conversational tasks across specialized functions.

• One agent interprets customer questions, another retrieves relevant data, a third generates responses in Club Med’s brand voice, and a fourth checks relevance.
• Human testers score answers as perfect, partially complete, or incorrect to enable continuous improvement.
• The system handles two key question categories—product information and pricing—which cover approximately 70% of customer queries.

Smart scaling approach: Since launching in Brazil in Q1 2024, the AI assistant has expanded to 12 markets by Q2 2025, each with localized languages and product details.

• Every new WhatsApp market rollout now includes AI integration, with a two-week analysis period to optimize for local query patterns.
• The company prioritizes expansion based on WhatsApp adoption rates and customer volume in each market.
• New agents are being added, including a Commercial Information Agent for localized promotions and a Booking Agent for trip reservations.

Key performance metrics: Chatterjee emphasizes measuring success across multiple dimensions rather than focusing solely on cost reduction.

• Productivity improvements for internal teams and automation rates across different business processes.
• Customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) for customer-facing applications.
• Cost avoidance through AI-driven efficiencies rather than direct cost cutting.
• Conversion rate improvements, with benchmarks showing 10-30% boosts on certain offers in UX-heavy environments.

What they’re saying: Chatterjee explained the transformation of customer service roles within the organization.

• “Previously, agents acted like ‘human APIs,’ manually retrieving information from databases – an inefficient use of their time. Now, a chatbot handles routine queries, freeing agents to focus on delivering a premium, emotionally engaging customer experience.”
• “Our vision is to enable the entire booking journey within WhatsApp, leveraging asynchronous messaging for both customers and service providers.”

The bigger picture: Club Med’s approach represents a comprehensive integration of AI across marketing, digital, data, and customer experience functions under unified leadership.

• The company maintains an omnichannel strategy while betting on messaging as the future of customer engagement.
• Success stems from analyzing call center data across markets to identify common pain points and optimize AI responses.
• The initiative includes generating pre-filled booking links that eliminate manual search and input processes, streamlining the customer journey from inquiry to reservation.