06/02/2019

Being stuck on a remote road in a foreign country can make it hard – and frustrating – to tell the breakdown service where to find you.

That’s why Dutch breakdown service ANWB has integrated what3words. Customers get sent a link by the dispatch call-handler to a dedicated ANWB map site to find their 3 word address and communicate it to the breakdown service. During the summer of 2018, ANWB used what3words in 20% of emergency cases for customers travelling outside of the Netherlands. Victor Blanco Neira, Project Manager for the Emergency Center Digital Innovation Team at ANWB, says: “In our call centre, the location pinpointing process for foreign cases can take 10 to 20 minutes. When using what3words, the location pinpointing can easily be done in two minutes, which is a great improvement.”

The largest non-profit club in the Netherlands, which has 4.5 million members, handled more than one million breakdown incidents in 2018. Being able to reach its customers faster not only makes life easier for its dispatchers, “customers are often surprised and relieved that we can locate them so quickly and precisely with this method,” said the agent.