HopSkipDrive is Reshaping K12 Transportation with Lightstream and Amazon Connect

HopSkipDrive is a California-based startup which provides ride-hailing taxi service to kids below the age of 18 years.

HopSkipDrive is a growing born-in-the-cloud company with plans to expand to other major U.S. cities. Given the important security aspect of transporting children under 18, customer service via live agents is paramount to the company’s success. HopSkipDrive was using Zendesk as their customer service software but planned to replace the solution with Kustomer. This required them to implement a new Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solution because the current one used Zendesk Talk. The company selected Amazon Connect for their new solution and was seeking an Amazon Connect-certified partner to architect and deploy the solution. AWS recommended that HopSkipDrive work with Lightstream.

Lightstream first analyzed HopSkipDrive’s call flows and application integration requirements. AWS Lambda was used to automatically retrieve the customer data based on the individual’s phone number and route the customer to the correct agent based on service request and the priority. Lightstream next configured the AWS environment and Amazon Connect with Kustomer. The environment was thoroughly tested, and the existing 1-800 number successfully ported over.

HopSkipDrive has already seen a 50% drop in call-center costs with Amazon Connect.

HopSkipDrive has already seen a 50% drop in call-center costs with Amazon Connect. Unlike other call center solutions, Amazon Connect only charges for minutes used and not a per-agent license fee. HopSkipDrive will also benefit from greater flexibility. During a recent internal system outage, staff was able to instantly change the company’s greeting to acknowledging the outage and deflect calls.