January 30, 2018 at 16:25100 interviews per hour, virtual space and 23 million rubles: the results of pilots in MEGA Accelerator 2017
In the summer, MEGA held the qualifying stage of the second accelerator: of the 275 teams, nine finalists were selected . In autumn, they were expected to launch pilots at sites with MEGA tenants and then the most interesting thing was to evaluate these launches. Here we will talk about how the debut projects went, the results of which determined the winner of the MEGA Accelerator.
Beesender is a program for automating communication with employees and customers using instant messengers, social networks and chatbots. In MEGA, on its basis, a comprehensive solution was created for the training and control of knowledge in the field of security.
All new employees, contractors and tenants of MEGA must undergo safety training and then pass testing on it with a certain frequency. There are, of course, a lot of these people. Since these briefings are mandatory, they need to be regularly organized, maintained accountability for them, and the deadlines monitored.
Beesender automated these briefings and tests - now they can be completed at any time using the chatbot on Facebook, Telegram or in a web browser. Deadline notifications come in the mail or phone. All information about the course is summarized in the admin panel, with which it is easy to generate reports.
During the pilot implementation, 68 people completed and passed the Beesender security course. Almost everyone liked the speed and availability of the system.
Automation of briefings with the help of software allows you to significantly optimize the process in time: to take the course you do not need to wait for the group to be recruited, you can take the test as soon as it is needed. The screening of laid-off employees is simplified: they are not notified of the course - they do not pass the test on time - passes are automatically disabled. Another point is the convenience of setting up new courses and reporting, which is very important when all tenants and contractors take the course, as is the case with security. Finally, the cost of instructors and other staff serving internal training is reduced.
Beesender became the winner of the second MEGA Accelerator and received a prize of 2 million rubles.
You can read about how the MEGA security system is organized in the "backstage" review "MEGA Belaya Dacha".
The second project also uses chat bots, but has a different functionality. Its main task is to unify all interaction between the administration of the shopping complex and tenants. Usually it is accompanied by a lot of paperwork: often both parties have to send paper letters and notifications to each other, and large-scale work on interviewing tenants is carried out by the courier service and therefore is delayed in time.
MrBot is able to automate these processes: organize technical correspondence, send notifications and collect feedback electronically, fulfill formalized applications (for example, for a pass). All this can be integrated through social networks, instant messengers and other convenient means of communication. An additional bonus is personalization: you can make individual offers to the client based on the information collected on him.
The main feature of the bot is its ability to learn in natural language in the process of work, to isolate the significant essence of messages.
During the test implementation, a part of the tool’s functionality was implemented in MEGA: opinions and proposals of tenants were collected and then automatically analyzed.
Verme system is designed to calculate the needs of the store in sales personnel. She takes huge amounts of data for up to 4 years - scans, checks, information from warehouses, etc. - normalizes them, takes into account seasonality and periodic promotions, and then, based on the results of the analysis, gives a forecast with a resolution of 15 minutes to 1 day.
As part of the pilot project, the system was implemented at 40 ticket offices of MEGA Khimki. The results were interesting. The costs of staff planning during this period were reduced from 63 to 7 hours. And the potential savings of the wage fund when calculating for the year is ₽23 million.
Above are the work schedules of cash desks for the working day before and after the system implementation. In general, the number of extra hours when the cashier is present at the workplace, but does not serve anyone, decreased by 5%. An additional effect is that thanks to Verme, the level of service has grown: queues have been reduced and customer experience has improved.
Virtual reality planetarium Altair VR was installed in one of the MEGA hypermarkets for nine days. Under the dome stylized in the New Year theme, one could watch VR films about space.
Due to the large number of approvals, the pilot phase of the project lasted only a week. During this time, 213 people visited the planetarium, and only 20% of them are adults. According to the polls, 96% of the guests liked the planetarium, and 87% would like to come again.
Faith is a robot recruiter that interacts with job candidates. As part of the pilot, the robot was used in both MEGA and IKEA.
In MEGA, Vera began searching for an engineer on duty for one of the hypermarkets. As a priority criterion, relevant work experience was indicated. The robot interviewed 71 out of 118 candidates and selected 10 of the most suitable ones, passing them to living recruiters. Interestingly, in the future, the hiring service approved several people and hired them.
The second task of Vera was a cold, “outgoing” search for candidates for work. Vera made 2,607 calls, which resulted in 102 responses and 34 interview invitations. It took 26 hours, or 3.5 business days. For a living recruiter, this amount of work would take much longer - 81 days.
The organizers feared that people during telephone interviews would refuse to talk to the robot, and their answers would not be clear or structured so that Vera could extract the necessary data. Fortunately, the fears were not confirmed.
Collaboration with developers continues. Now they are analyzing the standard reasons for the refusals of candidates at the initial interview and train Vera to answer questions from applicants. And they are finalizing AI for scoring the incoming stream.
This is another project aimed not at optimizing internal processes, but at working with visitors. The Save Time application allows you to pre-order food and services in establishments located in the shopping center. So visitors can plan ahead, for example, a visit to a beautician and not lose time waiting for orders in restaurants - as soon as dishes are ready, they will receive a notification on their smartphone.
According to the pilot’s results, 12 out of 26 restaurants are already cooperating with developers in one of the shopping centers, eight more are at the coordination stage. In the future, the developers plan to integrate the product with the site and the MEGA application, add profitable promotions for users and expand the functionality of the application.
This Israeli company presented its video calling project from San Francisco. The essence of Hexa is that the platform allows you to create a 3D model of a thing (for example, blouse), after which it can be virtually examined and even “tried on”. And then come to the store with specific articles, or even order everything online. In stores where they introduced this technology in test mode, customers actively use it and find it convenient.
Beesender - MEGA Accelerator Winner
Beesender is a program for automating communication with employees and customers using instant messengers, social networks and chatbots. In MEGA, on its basis, a comprehensive solution was created for the training and control of knowledge in the field of security.
All new employees, contractors and tenants of MEGA must undergo safety training and then pass testing on it with a certain frequency. There are, of course, a lot of these people. Since these briefings are mandatory, they need to be regularly organized, maintained accountability for them, and the deadlines monitored.
Beesender automated these briefings and tests - now they can be completed at any time using the chatbot on Facebook, Telegram or in a web browser. Deadline notifications come in the mail or phone. All information about the course is summarized in the admin panel, with which it is easy to generate reports.
During the pilot implementation, 68 people completed and passed the Beesender security course. Almost everyone liked the speed and availability of the system.
Automation of briefings with the help of software allows you to significantly optimize the process in time: to take the course you do not need to wait for the group to be recruited, you can take the test as soon as it is needed. The screening of laid-off employees is simplified: they are not notified of the course - they do not pass the test on time - passes are automatically disabled. Another point is the convenience of setting up new courses and reporting, which is very important when all tenants and contractors take the course, as is the case with security. Finally, the cost of instructors and other staff serving internal training is reduced.
Beesender became the winner of the second MEGA Accelerator and received a prize of 2 million rubles.
You can read about how the MEGA security system is organized in the "backstage" review "MEGA Belaya Dacha".
MrBot - became a messenger for tenants
The second project also uses chat bots, but has a different functionality. Its main task is to unify all interaction between the administration of the shopping complex and tenants. Usually it is accompanied by a lot of paperwork: often both parties have to send paper letters and notifications to each other, and large-scale work on interviewing tenants is carried out by the courier service and therefore is delayed in time.
MrBot is able to automate these processes: organize technical correspondence, send notifications and collect feedback electronically, fulfill formalized applications (for example, for a pass). All this can be integrated through social networks, instant messengers and other convenient means of communication. An additional bonus is personalization: you can make individual offers to the client based on the information collected on him.
The main feature of the bot is its ability to learn in natural language in the process of work, to isolate the significant essence of messages.
During the test implementation, a part of the tool’s functionality was implemented in MEGA: opinions and proposals of tenants were collected and then automatically analyzed.
Verme - Save 23 Million a Year
Verme system is designed to calculate the needs of the store in sales personnel. She takes huge amounts of data for up to 4 years - scans, checks, information from warehouses, etc. - normalizes them, takes into account seasonality and periodic promotions, and then, based on the results of the analysis, gives a forecast with a resolution of 15 minutes to 1 day.
As part of the pilot project, the system was implemented at 40 ticket offices of MEGA Khimki. The results were interesting. The costs of staff planning during this period were reduced from 63 to 7 hours. And the potential savings of the wage fund when calculating for the year is ₽23 million.
Above are the work schedules of cash desks for the working day before and after the system implementation. In general, the number of extra hours when the cashier is present at the workplace, but does not serve anyone, decreased by 5%. An additional effect is that thanks to Verme, the level of service has grown: queues have been reduced and customer experience has improved.
Altair VR - 213 visitors per week
Virtual reality planetarium Altair VR was installed in one of the MEGA hypermarkets for nine days. Under the dome stylized in the New Year theme, one could watch VR films about space.
Due to the large number of approvals, the pilot phase of the project lasted only a week. During this time, 213 people visited the planetarium, and only 20% of them are adults. According to the polls, 96% of the guests liked the planetarium, and 87% would like to come again.
Robot Vera - 2,607 calls in 26 hours
Faith is a robot recruiter that interacts with job candidates. As part of the pilot, the robot was used in both MEGA and IKEA.
In MEGA, Vera began searching for an engineer on duty for one of the hypermarkets. As a priority criterion, relevant work experience was indicated. The robot interviewed 71 out of 118 candidates and selected 10 of the most suitable ones, passing them to living recruiters. Interestingly, in the future, the hiring service approved several people and hired them.
The second task of Vera was a cold, “outgoing” search for candidates for work. Vera made 2,607 calls, which resulted in 102 responses and 34 interview invitations. It took 26 hours, or 3.5 business days. For a living recruiter, this amount of work would take much longer - 81 days.
The organizers feared that people during telephone interviews would refuse to talk to the robot, and their answers would not be clear or structured so that Vera could extract the necessary data. Fortunately, the fears were not confirmed.
Collaboration with developers continues. Now they are analyzing the standard reasons for the refusals of candidates at the initial interview and train Vera to answer questions from applicants. And they are finalizing AI for scoring the incoming stream.
Save Time - Half Pre-ordered Restaurants
This is another project aimed not at optimizing internal processes, but at working with visitors. The Save Time application allows you to pre-order food and services in establishments located in the shopping center. So visitors can plan ahead, for example, a visit to a beautician and not lose time waiting for orders in restaurants - as soon as dishes are ready, they will receive a notification on their smartphone.
According to the pilot’s results, 12 out of 26 restaurants are already cooperating with developers in one of the shopping centers, eight more are at the coordination stage. In the future, the developers plan to integrate the product with the site and the MEGA application, add profitable promotions for users and expand the functionality of the application.
Hexa - everyone wants to try on in AR
This Israeli company presented its video calling project from San Francisco. The essence of Hexa is that the platform allows you to create a 3D model of a thing (for example, blouse), after which it can be virtually examined and even “tried on”. And then come to the store with specific articles, or even order everything online. In stores where they introduced this technology in test mode, customers actively use it and find it convenient.