Meet Suomalainen Kirjakauppa
Founded in 1912, Suomalainen Kirjakauppa is Finland’s largest nationwide bookstore chain. Its online bookstore, Suomalainen.com, launched in 1999, extends the physical stores’ reach and serves a broad digital audience. With a strong legacy and digital presence, Suomalainen strives to provide excellent customer service at scale.
The Challenge
Suomalainen had an existing button-based chatbot but found it limiting—restricted in use cases and unable to offer a truly personalized customer experience. They wanted:
- A more human-like, conversational AI fitting their brand
- Easy maintenance and scalability to new use cases
- A way to improve customer satisfaction by shifting conversations from expensive, resource-heavy channels (phone and email) to an automated, cost-efficient channel (chat)
The Goal
Their main objective was not just automation, but improving customer satisfaction while moving customer conversations from phone and email to chat—a channel better suited for automation and scale.
The Solution: AI Agent in two phases
To improve customer service efficiency but also the online shopping experience, Suomalainen Kirjakauppa set out a clear two-phase AI plan: phase 1 with an AI Support Agent, and phase 2 with an AI Shopping Agent. Together, these would create a seamless digital experience.
Phase 1: AI Support Agent — Sulo-pöllö
Suomalainen launched Pöllö-apuri (eng. Owl Helper), their branded AI Support Agent that serves as the primary contact channel on their online store. This AI Support Agent:
- Handles FAQs and questions regarding order inquiries, payment info, delivery, loyalty program details, and more
- Operates fully automatically without human handover for routine inquiries
- Provides real-time support that feels personal and aligned with Suomalainen’s brand voice.
The setup is designed for easy maintenance: the AI automatically updates itself with the latest information from Suomalainen’s systems, minimizing manual upkeep to only minor optimizations. This is made possible through integrations, and it ensures the AI remains accurate and effective without heavy ongoing effort.
Phase 2: AI Shopping Agent — Now Live
In the next phase, Suomalainen implemented an AI Shopping Agent focused on sales-oriented tasks:
- Suggesting relevant products
- Driving sales through personalized shopping assistance
This phase has already been successfully deployed and is live, enhancing the customer journey by making shopping smoother and more interactive.
Results
By Suomalainen Kirjakauppa’s AI Support Agent has driven impressive results:
- - 16% decrease in emails
- - 8% fewer phone calls
- + 70% customer satisfaction score in chat
- + 6000% increase in chats (purely AI handled)
Previously, Suomalainen had no active live chat channel. Now, a fully AI-powered chat has been established and has clearly found its place among the key contact channels — reducing email and phone volumes while keeping customer satisfaction high.
The shift from costly, resource-heavy channels to automated chat has had a flying start.
What’s next?
Suomalainen is preparing to scale their AI solution beyond shopping. The AI will gain deeper product knowledge and further optimize the service experience, continuing to improve customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
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