How Verso saves 50k and boosts response rates to 80% with WhatsApp automation

Verso is a festival travel specialist, delivering complete travel packages for some of Europe’s most popular music festivals, including Hideout Festival and Snowbombing.

Instead of just selling tickets, Verso creates full festival experiences that combine: event access, flight and accommodation options. Because these packages involve multiple components, customers often have detailed questions about their bookings. During major sales launches and payment deadlines, this results in large spikes in customer conversations.

To keep operations scalable while maintaining a great customer experience, Verso transitioned from manual SMS outreach and static automation flows to proactive WhatsApp campaigns and AI-powered automation with Trengo.

Challenge: Scaling payment reminders during festival sales peaks

Verso handles thousands of festival bookings per event, with strong seasonal peaks around sales launches and payment deadlines. As their customer base grew, their communication setup began to limit how efficiently they could manage outreach and follow-ups.

Manual SMS outreach was expensive and difficult to scale
Before switching to Trengo, payment reminders were sent via SMS, after which customers were asked to continue the conversation on WhatsApp. This created friction in the customer journey:

• SMS replies generated additional costs
• Conversations were split across channels
• Low response rate on SMS, so agents still had to manually follow up
  

A typical payment reminder list includes 300 customers, but only 50 customers reached out via WhatsApp after the SMS campaign, leaving much of the outreach to manual chasing.

Verso needed a way to reach thousands of customers instantly without increasing operational workload or messaging costs. 

Static automation flows couldn't support complex journeys
Additionally, Verso relied on traditional Flowbots, but these static decision-tree automations struggled to keep up with the complexity of festival bookings.

The challenges included:

• Rigid automation flows requiring manual configuration
• Difficulty handling complex festival packages
• Limited ability to understand free-text customer replies

This made it difficult to automate conversations like payment extensions, cancellations, or booking changes. Verso needed a smarter automation system that could understand customer intent rather than relying on predefined decision trees.

Solution: Proactive WhatsApp campaigns powered by AI

To modernize their customer communication, Verso implemented Trengo with a focus on Proactive WhatsApp messaging and AI-powered automation. This allowed them to replace SMS campaigns with scalable WhatsApp outreach while automating large portions of their customer conversations.

Replacing SMS with proactive WhatsApp campaigns
Instead of sending payment reminders via SMS, Verso now sends personalized WhatsApp template messages directly to customers.

Each message can include up to nine personalization variables, such as: booking ID, outstanding balance, payment deadlines, and event details. Customers receive a clear message explaining their outstanding payment and the next steps. In addition, WhatsApp messages typically achieve open rates of up to 90%, significantly increasing the chances that customers see and act on the reminder.

Because the conversation now happens directly on WhatsApp:

• Customers can reply instantly
• Support teams manage everything in one shared inbox
• Inbound replies no longer generate SMS costs

Most importantly, Verso can now reach thousands of customers at once without manual follow-ups.

AI-powered classification of incoming responses
Large outbound campaigns naturally generate hundreds, sometimes thousands, of replies. Instead of manually reviewing every response, Verso uses AI automation to classify incoming messages.

Because the system understands free-text responses, including typos and informal language, it can trigger the correct automation flow instantly. This replaces rigid FlowBots with dynamic, AI-driven conversation handling.

Building trust and improving response rates through secure communication
A key advantage of switching to WhatsApp is the ability to send branded, verified messages. Customers can clearly see that messages come from an official Verso business account, reducing uncertainty and concerns about scams.

This added layer of trust has a direct impact on engagement:

• Customers are more likely to open and respond to messages
• Payment reminders feel safer and more legitimate
• Friction in the customer journey is reduced

By combining personalized proactive messaging with a trusted communication channel, Verso not only improved response rates but also reduced cancellations by reaching customers earlier and more effectively.

Results: Scalable campaigns and less manual payment chasing

With Proactive WhatsApp and AI-powered automation, Verso has transformed how they handle payment reminders and customer outreach. The team can now run large-scale campaigns while keeping operations efficient.

• ~£50,000 annual cost savings (equivalent to 1 full-time employee and 2 seasonal staff)
• 50% lower messaging costs compared to SMS
• Payment chasing time reduced from 2.5 weeks to 1 week
• Response rates increased from 15–20% (SMS) to 70–80% (WhatsApp)
• Customers respond faster, reducing the need for manual follow-ups
• Reducing from ~500 cancellations to around 200 cancellations due to proactive messaging 

Verso can now launch campaigns at scale, handle seasonal peaks, and automate repetitive payment conversations. This allows their support team to focus on complex booking questions instead of manual follow-ups.

‍“Switching to proactive WhatsApp has delivered immediate cost savings. It’s roughly half the cost of SMS, while also driving much higher engagement. That combination of lower costs and better results makes it an easy win for us.” - Jackson, Sales Manager at Verso 

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