How Citizen Watch made Chatbase its front line with customers in Spain and Portugal

75%

of customer questions now resolved instantly

24/7

answers for prospective buyers and existing owners

markets served by one agent: Spain and Portugal

At a glance

Citizen Watch Ibérica brings Citizen watches, from Eco-Drive to Promaster, to shoppers and retailers across Spain and Portugal. For a retail brand, every question on the website is a small test: answer it well and the customer trusts the brand a little more; leave them waiting and they draw their own conclusions. Alberto Magliola, General Manager and Commercial Director, chose Chatbase to answer these questions on Citizen’s website, both before and after the sale. Today their Chatbase agent is Citizen’s main channel to interface with its customers.

“If the chat helped you, you trust the brand more. If it causes you problems, you might think: these people don’t even bother to improve their main communication channel.”

Alberto Magliola, General and Commercial Director, Citizen Watch Ibérica

The challenge: every unanswered question costs a retail brand something

Watch owners ask the same things. Where do I send it for repair? How do I set the time? Is it real? At Citizen Watch Ibérica, 75% of questions are repeats, and nearly half are about after-sales service. Before Chatbase, customers had two options: call and wait on hold, or fill in a contact form and wait for an email response. Neither of these options were good experiences for the customer. The good news is that the answers to many questions already live on the website or in a manual. The problem is that most people don’t have the patience to dig for it, and there is a real cost for each customer that gives up. A shopper unsure which watch fits doesn’t buy. An owner who can’t find a service center goes to a third-party repair store.

“Of every 100 people you tell to read the manual, 90 get annoyed. People are practical.”

Alberto Magliola, Managing Director, Citizen Watch Ibérica

Why Chatbase: the expert’s pick, with the brand in control

Alberto didn’t pick an AI tool on a hunch. He went to a leading Spanish AI educator, someone who tests and reviews new software every day, and built a shortlist of four or five tools from that advice. Then he tried them himself. Three things separated Chatbase:

It was the clear standout from the first login. Among tools an expert had already vetted, Chatbase was the one that felt built by people who understood the problem. For a retail brand putting AI in front of its customers, that first impression mattered: if the product felt solid to Alberto, it was more likely to feel solid to Citizen’s shoppers.
Citizen controls every answer, without a developer. Alberto describes himself, cheerfully, as “not a millennial.” The other tools on his list meant tinkering inside the software to get anything done. With Chatbase, he writes the agent’s instructions in plain language and corrects its answers himself. Nobody sits between a knowledgeable staff member and customers, so the brand’s voice, product knowledge and after-sales policies reach shoppers exactly as Citizen intends. When something needs fixing, someone is able to fix it immediately instead of waiting on a technical team.
It grows with the brand. Citizen started small, with simple FAQ answers to the questions customers ask most. From there it expanded the same agent into selling and service, with in-chat product widgets that show product recommendations and a service center map that routes owners to the nearest repair point. Each new capability went onto the agent customers already use, so Citizen never had to launch, train or maintain a second tool. For retail brands, that’s the path: start with support, then turn the same agent into a guide for the whole buying journey.

“I logged in to Chatbase and immediately thought: these people seem to know what they’re doing.”

Alberto Magliola, Managing Director, Citizen Watch Ibérica

How it works: one agent for the whole retail journey

Citizen runs a single Chatbase agent on its website that serves shoppers before the sale and owners after it, in the brand’s own voice:

AI agent: answers the questions Citizen hears every day, at any hour, and hands complex technical cases to the team through the contact form instead of guessing
Product widgets: visually show real Citizen watches in the chat, so shoppers see exactly what they’re asking about
Service center map: sends each owner to their nearest Citizen service center based on their location

Answering only what was asked

The agent answers only what was asked. Here is what that looks like for a typical owner:

A customer asks how to set the time on their watch. The agent finds the manual for their movement and answers the question directly.
The customer asks where to get the strap repaired. The service center map shows the nearest Citizen service center.
They ask which new model might suit them, and the agent shows a handful of watches in the chat, with a link to the right page.

“You have to be a point people can rely on. Someone comes in, asks four questions, and gets their answers.”

Alberto Magliola, Managing Director, Citizen Watch Ibérica

The learning loop: a monthly review that sharpens the agent and the team

Launching the agent was the start. What keeps Citizen’s answers more and more accurate over time is a simple routine Alberto runs himself, the same way a manager would coach a new hire. Once a month, he sits down with about 50 of the agent’s recent conversations and works through them:

Read the answers as a customer would. Is the answer correct? Is it clear? Does it sound like Citizen?
Fix what’s off. When an answer is wrong or incomplete, Alberto corrects it directly in Chatbase, so the next customer who asks gets the right version.
Fill the gaps. When a customer asks something the agent doesn’t know yet, he adds it.
Go to the source when needed. When Alberto didn’t know the right answer himself, he tracked it down with Citizen’s product colleagues before updating the agent.

Corrections that stick, and a direct line to customers

Each pass makes the agent sharper, and the effect compounds. Corrections stick, so the same mistake doesn’t come back, and every month the agent increasingly covers more of what customers actually ask. The routine sharpened Alberto too. Chasing down answers with product colleagues deepened his own knowledge of Citizen’s catalog. And reading real conversations every month showed him what really worries Citizen’s customers, in their own words. For a commercial director, that’s a direct line to the customer that a phone queue and a contact form never gave him.

The results: fewer calls, more answers, a brand customers trust

Phone calls and contact-form emails dropped sharply after launch. Customers who once waited for a reply now get an answer on the spot, at any hour, in one question instead of a tour of the site. Because asking is instant, more people ask, so Citizen now answers questions that used to go unasked or end with a shopper leaving the site. The team spends its time on the cases that need a person. The bigger change is how customers see the brand. A helpful agent tells shoppers they’re dealing with a serious brand, and that trust may not become a sale today, but it can tomorrow.

“The chatbot helps shoppers with the things they ask, and they come away with more confidence in it. They think, this is a serious brand.”

Alberto Magliola, Managing Director, Citizen Watch Ibérica

Advice to retail brands: treat your agent like a new hire

Alberto sees AI as almost mandatory for retail brands today, as long as the brand keeps control of what customers hear. His advice follows the path Citizen took:

Start with the questions you answer every day. At Citizen, 75% of questions were repeats. Those are the easiest wins: the answers already exist, and customers want them fast. Get them right first, and the agent earns trust from day one.
Cover the whole journey with one agent. Shoppers deciding which watch to buy and owners looking for a repair are the same customers at different moments. One agent on the website for both means one place to ask, one voice for the brand and one tool for the team to manage.
Answer what was asked, then point the way. Customers don’t want the full catalog or a manual. Show a handful of relevant products, give the direct answer, and link to the right page for anything more.
Hand off what needs a person. The agent shouldn’t guess at a repair. Route complex technical cases to your experts, through a service center or your contact form, so customers get the right answer even when the agent isn’t the one giving it.
Manage it like a new team member. Check its answers every month, correct what’s wrong and add what it doesn’t know yet. The brand stays in charge of every answer, so customers hear what you’d tell them yourself.