Korah Limited

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Respondent 1: I’m the manager of the integrated content management unit within Service Canada. The primary responsibility of our unit is to create and maintain knowledge repositories used by frontline channels and agents who, in turn, serve the public.

The idea is to have information, general in scope, to answer a variety of questions on services and programs available from the Government of Canada. This includes the telephone channel, the in-person service channel, and the web and chatbot channel.

Respondent 2: I’m on the web services side. This is destined to be a web service, and we are involved. My colleague is the business lead for a lot of the way the call centers. This call service is working, but we just take care of keeping the lights on. We are handling the security, the server-side, terms of use, and anything that is technically aligned to this project.

What challenge were you trying to address with Korah Limited?

R1: We were made aware of the opportunity through a specific program that’s available through the PSPC (Public Services and Procurement Canada) Department where they have a program that’s the build innovation in Canada program that pairs up organizations that have sort of startup functionalities or tools, and looking for help in testing and getting some feedback with other departments that are looking to explore the possibilities of using this type of new functionality.

In our case, being a service delivery organization, in helping the public explore how a chatbot could in the future be used to help serve the public and provide them another avenue to help obtain information rather than the more traditional channels of telephone and person, and the conventional web.

It is something that we wanted to explore to see how it could fit our service delivery model and how it would fit within our content management model. When this opportunity came up, the project was assigned, and we began working with Korah Limited.

What was the scope of their involvement?

R1: The idea was that it was an existing software that Korah Limited had and that they were looking at enhancing and bringing it to market. I think they may have had different forays with other partners, banks, or still some pilot phases at that point. We were working with their existing software to see how it suited our possible needs, and how it could or would need to be modified to fit out service delivery model. It wasn’t built from scratch.

R2: The Build in Canada Innovation Program (BCIP) is to support these types of vendor innovations. The idea is that it is not a fully baked innovation yet, but it is there enough to be tested, used, and then in that testing, it is further refined.

It’s an opportunity for us to build in Canada, and to invest in these innovations that are happening here, and also give them an opportunity to test their software and to have a client on the other end of all these things that they are trying to test out. It works for both of us, and it has been pretty good.

I think there has been a lot of Build in Canada initiatives. We only knew about this one, and I believe IRCC (Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada) is also involved with this one. The two other departments that we are in contact with over chat specification is the Canada Revenue Agency and IRCC.

R1: At the core, it has remained the same project, which is to have a chatbot software to provide service delivery. It has changed throughout the years based on the different types of information we have tested with the chatbot. Initially, our scope revolved around passport applications and information, and that is what started the project back in 2017. All of the conversations, interactions, and development revolved around supporting that type of service delivery.

Since then, we have also stood up another version of the chatbot to support a different stream of information and a different stream of clients with its own specific needs and requirements that differ from what would have been required from the passport project. Both are still operational, available, and continue to be supported.

Throughout the course, there have been additional requirements from simple client interaction improvements that we have recommended and seen, operator requirements and improvements that Korah Limited has worked on, specific reporting requirements that we have brought forward that they have supported, and certainly other enhancements and streamlining of the tool itself that have been brought about.

R2: The objective of the BCIP is to test various enhancements, but also to test the backend, the accessibility; the readiness of it for primetime. There was a lot of innovation in the backend that may not be apparent, but then there was also some customization of the frontend too.

For example, we did put it through accessibility, did a lot of work on areas like the code for chat specification. It works differently than a webpage, and it evolves and progresses.

R1: There were several ad hoc type requests that have come up throughout the project where specials have come up either through our service delivery needs that Korah Limited has had to respond to and provide solutions in short order.

What is the team composition?

R1: As far as meetings or interactions, I would say there are four different individuals from them during the course of this project that I’ve directly interacted with. Korah Limited has a specific team in their Toronto office that we never had interactions with, but I’m sure they helped when needs came up.

How did you come to work with Korah Limited?

R2: The way that Korah Limited works is very agile. The government direction now is really towards agile, and they fit in very nicely.

We were able to pull together a multidisciplinary team including Korah Limited to get something up and out the door fairly fast. They were also helpful because they have some expertise to share in the design of the content for the call as well. They’re technical people that are a good fit for the multidisciplinary type of government teams.

What is the status of this engagement?

R1: It started around November 2017, and it is ongoing as we speak.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

R1: From my end, we’re pleased with the collaboration. Throughout the project, the Korah Limited team has been responsive. Being, again, that this tool stood up in a live environment to serve the public, having them be there to support should something come up or emerging needs has been great because obviously we can’t wait multiple days or weeks for things to be put in production when serving clients.

We’re happy from that standpoint. The tool itself and the evolution of it and its functionalities have been quite a nice improvement. It’s more flexible and easier to manage on our end.

R2: I found them to be very easy to work with. It’s nice that they’ll respond immediately to quick emails. It’s very helpful because during COVID-19, we have had a lot of urgencies and needed a lot of very quick turnaround, and they’ve been very helpful in that regard.

How did Korah Limited perform from a project management standpoint?

R2: We mostly use email and phone for communication.

R1: We have had a series of weekly meetings by telephone to keep in touch, and then, of course, email is the other primary way for us to communicate issues, needs, or requirements. They were also on-site here a few times especially in the initial part of the project to help with training and transition and making sure that staff was comfortable with the tool, but since then, it’s been primarily virtual and telephone.

What did you find most impressive about them?

R1: One word that comes to mind about Korah Limited is collaborative.

R2: I would say agile.

Are there any areas they could improve?

R1: To be honest, I don’t have anything that readily comes to mind. I’ve never felt frustrated by the project or felt that we were in danger of not properly supporting clients with the use of the tool. There have been a couple of different people on the project, which happens.

Sometimes maybe a definition of who is responsible for what would be helpful, and maybe from a communication standpoint, we could streamline better, but I’ll be honest that I’m grasping at straws. We’ve been very demanding, trust me.

R2: I think as my colleague mentioned, they have been very proactive in quick turnaround, anticipating our needs, and proposing to us an enhancement that would help. I feel like in building this service, they’ve been a partner for us to work with and help us. Sometimes they would reframe something because what we asked for wasn’t what we really meant, and that was also helpful. There was never a time they couldn’t meet our needs. They always asked us what we needed, and they would plan something and work towards that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

R1: I can only base myself on the product that I have had exposure with. The whole chatbot environment was new to me. Of course, I knew about chatbots and used them, but as far as having the responsibility of setting it up did take a little bit of a learning curve.

Just reading up on their functionality as much as possible and getting familiar with that before getting involved is the only recommendation I can have but that is only because I didn’t have a lot of knowledge on that side when I got into the project.

R2: I think the best part about working with them has been their ability to work in an agile fashion. I would recommend when you start the kickoff, just have everyone in and brainstorm. They’re very good at brainstorming.

Once they have a good understanding of where you are and where you want to go, they are very able to propose things from their expertise that would help get you to where you are. Be as open as possible, and give them as much information as possible so that they can be truly collaborative and agile.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I represent the Ontario Real Estate Association. We’re a nonprofit organization looking after the interests of real estate professionals. We have over 80,000 members in the province of Ontario.

What challenge were you trying to address with Korah Limited?

We have a website and other resources where we’re using Korah’s AI chatbot.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Korah provided us a prebuilt product and customized it to our needs. We have a specific group of products we want to emphasize on, including the standard forms used by our agents when they get people to buy houses. The goal was to promote our products using the chatbot, and Korah assisted us with the content and its curation, and with setting it up in the chatbot admin system.

What is the team composition?

I’ve had one main contact, and I believe there are 2–3 people doing the work behind the scenes. We wanted to have a single contact at Korah, and that’s what ended up happening.

How did you come to work with Korah Limited?

We looked at 3–4 different providers, and Korah was willing to open up their product to us, in order to train the bot as well. We wanted their help initially with adding content to the bot, but we’re training the bot and updating the content in-house on an ongoing basis.

Their product gave us that ability, unlike other products we looked at. The other providers wanted their consultants to do that, at a pretty high cost. We liked Korah’s flexibility, and the cost of the product was reasonable compared to the alternatives. They were more than willing to help us implement the bot in a short period of time. I believe we did it in 3–4 months.

What is the status of this engagement?

The actual work took 3–4 months, but we were also looking at other products, so there was a delay on our side. Looking at the actual work from the start, I believe it started in July 2019, and Korah finished by November or December of that year. There could’ve been interactions earlier, but those were more to do with how the product would work, etc. I wouldn’t really consider that actual work.

We have an ongoing support contract with them. The licensing model we’ve purchased covers a few hours of support, and they’ve helped us whenever our internal resources weren’t sure about something and needed expert advice.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The reason for doing this was that we were getting a lot of calls from our 80,000 members to our internal staff to explain certain things about our products. That was taking a lot of time for us, and the staff was getting bored with the repetitive communication. They found that they could utilize their time more effectively if they could offload this activity.

People are being directed to use the chatbot, and all of those calls have more or less stopped. The feedback we get from members is that they like it.

It’s a bit hard to talk about numbers because we’re getting a lot more people accessing the chatbot at all times, compared to the calls we were getting during office hours. I’ve seen the actual usage of the chatbot increase gradually. We didn’t really do a huge marketing launch. It was a new product, and we weren’t sure how it would go, so we just put it there on our website. We’ve seen a gradual increase in usage, and the numbers seem pretty promising.

How did Korah Limited perform from a project management standpoint?

We have one person assigned as the subject-matter expert from Korah’s side. Most of the work had to be done internally, on our end. They had two platforms, one for staging and one for production, and they made the product available to load the content.

The work we had to do was getting the actual information from our own subject-matter experts on the products we wanted to market and put it into the proper format for the chatbot. From a project management point of view, we set clear deadlines for our internal team to provide content. Once that content was ready, Korah uploaded it into the chatbot and tweaked the system.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s their willingness to work at all hours in order to deliver on time. They were never reluctant to do anything, no matter what we were asking for; it was always done by the next day. They were also willing to train our team wholeheartedly and let us take over, which is rare with many vendors. They won’t usually train us one hundred percent so that we’ll still need them, but Korah did.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had a learning process around the product, and the training was fine, but there were certain things that we wanted to add to the product, like spam filtering. That was something that Korah didn’t have initially, but we asked for it, and it’ll become part of their standard product in the next version.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients should get their documentation in order beforehand. Korah is very reasonable and cost-effective, but, if the client wants to implement something fast, they need to know what products they want to push into the chatbot. If they have different business units that need to be involved, they should get the relevant information from each one.

It doesn’t have to be in a pretty format, but there should at least be an outline of what the client wants. That way, it’ll be easy for them to plan for and execute the specific content that needs to go in in a very orderly way.