From inbox overload to always-on support, with the same personal touch

Trenara, a popular Belgian running app, is growing fast. Its success comes from helping and coaching tens of thousands of runners to reach their goals every day through scientific, personalized and adaptive training plans. Trenara’s running app grew in popularity as well as the community, and that growth came with a new challenge: support.

Everyone who has a Trenara Peak Pro subscription can ask and chat directly with the Trenara team. Runners can ask questions about their schedule, share how the training went or get last-minute race advice before their big day. Like most platforms, Trenara has a well-documented FAQ and support center available, but after the chat launched, users quickly defaulted to messaging instead of reading through those articles.

But behind the chat icon, it was CEO Christophe himself answering nearly all of these questions. What started as a few friendly chats quickly became a second full-time job. More than a full workday each week was spent on replying to users. Here are some numbers:

• 65,000 messages manually answered

• 8+ hours every week spent on admin tasks

• Always “on,” even during family holidays
  

"I reclaimed the mental space to think ahead and create. And yes, I even read a book on vacation." says Christophe, CEO of Trenara.

🏃‍♂️ Rookoo joins the race

Something had to change. Christophe and the team wanted to keep the personal bond with the Trenara runners but also free up time to continue working on innovative running features.

That’s when Rookoo joined the race. Together with Christophe we built an AI support assistant, named Walter, trained on Trenara’s tone of voice, FAQs, their scientific based approach and their real chat history.

Walter now handles the majority of day-to-day inquiries, allowing the Trenara team to focus on innovation and community. Importantly, there’s always a clear path for a human in the loop. Whenever a question goes beyond Walter’s scope, the conversation is seamlessly handed over to the Trenara team. By doing manual spot checks, Walter is reviewed and fine-tuned where needed.

The most beautiful part: Walter keeps getting smarter. Every interaction, question and correction helps us tweak, learn and adapt. Over time he’ll be able to handle more complex tasks and even execute specific actions. We might be running ahead of ourselves, but we can see Walter automatically adjusting schedules, updating user settings,... and so much more.

Runners still feel heard, but responses come instantly even late at night, on mornings before the race or during a marathon weekend. It started small, but soon became the first line of support.

And just like Christophe, Walter is friendly and fast, but available 24/7.

🏁 Crossing the finish line

The results speak for themselves. Since Walter joined the team, Trenara’s average response time dropped from hours to seconds. Walter now handles the majority of daily questions saving Christophe more than a full workday every week.

Support has become faster, more consistent and always available, even when the Trenera team is offline. Runners still feel the same level of personal care, and the feedback has been really positive! Which is ultimately what we both were striving for.

For Trenara, the biggest win isn’t efficiency. It's the focus. With support under control the team can once again invest their time and energy in what truly matters: improving their app, growing the community and helping runners unlock their personal bests.

“We never wanted to lose the human connection with our runners” “Walter helps us keep that, but without the stress that comes with managing everything by hand. It feels like having an extra teammate who’s always there, so we can focus again on building Trenara.” says Christophe, CEO of Trenara.

On track for the Next Mile

We’re thrilled with the results and the collaboration with Trenara and proud to see how Walter, the AI customer support assistant, is helping runners and the team every day. The cherry on top for us was the very personal and heartwarming update 🤗 that Christophe made on LinkedIn. What started as a support challenge turned into a story of smarter communication and time reclaimed for what we love most: innovation.

Here’s to many more kilometers together! Read more about Trenara’s journey on their LinkedIn or, visit Trenara to discover their app

Want to learn more about other Rookoo Assistants? Read more about Wintercircus' Betsy here, or SPIN's Lisa here. Or if you want to see it in action and book a 15min free demo.