Hello Sugar Taps PolyAI to Answer Every Call in Arizona and Book 50% of Appointments in Under 3 Minutes
Hello Sugar partners with PolyAI to automate calls for hours, booking, and payments without hold time. Results: 100% answer in AZ, 56% containment, 50% booked under 3 min.
Hello Sugar taps PolyAI to automate customer experience
September 11, 2025
Hello Sugar, a fast-growing beauty franchise with 160+ U.S. locations, is partnering with PolyAI to automate front-line service calls. Using the company's Agent Studio voice technology, callers can get hours and locations, book appointments, and even make payments without waiting on hold.
The headline for support leaders
Before this move, Hello Sugar answered roughly 20% of the tens of thousands of monthly calls it received, pushing the rest to chat. In three weeks, the team deployed PolyAI voice agents across dozens of locations and posted standout results:
- 100% of calls answered in the company's home state of Arizona.
- 56% containment, with complex calls routed to human agents.
- 50% of clients booked appointments through voice agents in under 3 minutes.
For support operations, that means faster answers, fewer abandoned calls, and cleaner handoffs. It's a practical example of voice automation handling real demand at scale.
Why this rollout stands out
- Speed to value: Production rollout to dozens of locations in weeks, not quarters.
- Transactional scope: Appointment booking and payments handled by the agent, not just FAQs.
- Consistency across sites: A unified, on-brand experience as the franchise targets 500 locations.
"Hello Sugar has a well-deserved reputation for delighting customers from the moment they set foot in one of their spas. It was important for us to match their exceptional level of service with on-brand voice agents that can scale across all locations. In an industry where experience is everything, we're proud to support Hello Sugar at the 5-star level their customers expect," said Nikola Mrkลกiฤ, PolyAI co-Founder and CEO.
Playbook: how to apply this in your contact center
- Prioritize high-intent journeys: Hours, locations, booking, payments. Keep flows short; remove dead ends.
- Set clear transfer rules: Detect frustration or repeat prompts, then warm-transfer to a human with full context.
- Instrument the right metrics: Answer rate by location, containment by intent, time-to-book, payment completion, and post-call CSAT.
- Secure payments: Keep systems out of PCI scope where possible. Use redaction, tokenization, and pause/resume recording during sensitive fields.
- Integrate deeply: Scheduling, CRM, and billing should update in real time. No manual swivel for agents after handoff.
- Brand and accessibility: Match tone, offer language options, and provide clear disclosures where required.
- Roll out in waves: Pilot select locations, review call transcripts, tune prompts, then expand with A/B-tested flows.
- Coach your team: Clarify handoff etiquette, share transcripts for QA, and refine human follow-ups based on failed intents.
Questions to ask your AI voice vendor
- How do you handle interruptions, accents, and barge-in without losing context?
- What triggers a transfer, and how is the warm handoff presented to agents?
- What reporting do we get by location and intent, and how quickly?
- How are payments secured, and what certifications and redaction methods are in place?
- What's the pricing model (per minute, per call, success-based), and what SLAs back performance?
Resources
Explore the vendor behind the rollout: PolyAI.
Building your team's skills for voice automation and AI in support? See our curated picks by role: AI courses by job.
