How 401GO improved customer experience and uncovered hidden demand with Expertise AI

Overview

401GO is a fast-growing fintech company helping businesses set up and manage 401(k) plans. Their customers range from small business owners to large enterprises, and they also partner with financial advisors and payroll providers to deliver these services.

With a high-intent audience visiting their website, many of whom have complex financial questions, delivering fast, accurate responses is critical. At the same time, their website acts as a gateway for both existing customers and new prospects, making it essential to balance support, qualification, and conversion within HubSpot.

The Challenge

Before implementing Expertise AI, 401GO relied on HubSpot's chatbot solutions, but ran into clear limitations. Their existing setup fell into two extremes:

• A manual chatbot, which required heavy configuration and ongoing maintenance
• An AI chatbot, which introduced a high per-conversation cost

In practice, neither option delivered the right balance.

"We were using the manual chatbot, and it was pretty broken… everything was so manual, it just wasn't very helpful."

— Jared Twitchell, VP of Digital Enablement

As a result:

• Customer inquiries were repetitive and overwhelmed support
• The chatbot failed to scale with growing traffic
• There was no visibility into what visitors were actually asking

401GO evaluated Expertise AI alongside HubSpot's AI chatbot and five to six other tools claiming HubSpot integration.

"There were probably five or six that claimed to integrate with HubSpot… but only two or three were actually good enough to use."

Most alternatives:

• Didn't integrate deeply enough with HubSpot
• Lacked flexibility or intelligence
• Or came with high costs without clear ROI

Why Expertise AI

401GO ultimately chose Expertise AI over all alternatives, including HubSpot's own chatbot. The decision came down to performance within a HubSpot-centric workflow and cost efficiency.

"What I was pleasantly surprised to find is that Expertise AI was actually better than the HubSpot chatbot at a lower cost."

— Jared Twitchell

While HubSpot offers broad functionality, its chatbot is just one component of a larger system. Expertise AI, on the other hand, is built specifically for conversational engagement.

"The HubSpot chatbot isn't quite as robust… you guys are focused on one thing, and that shows."

— Jared Twitchell

For 401GO, this meant:

• A more robust and flexible chatbot experience
• A solution that actually works within HubSpot workflows
• A significantly better cost-to-performance ratio

Rather than replacing HubSpot, Expertise AI enhanced it, turning it into a more powerful engagement and conversion layer.

Implementation & Onboarding

The onboarding process was smooth, even within a complex HubSpot setup:

• Setup was quick and intuitive
• The team was highly responsive
• Issues were resolved in real-time

Even when small technical issues arose (like embedding forms), they were resolved immediately, ensuring no disruption.

"It was pretty easy… and your team was very responsive. Whenever I had questions, multiple people jumped in to help."

— Jared Twitchell

"You guys fixed it super fast, it wasn't an issue."

— Jared Twitchell

This ensured 401GO could move from evaluation to production without delays.

The Impact

1. Surfacing Hidden Customer Questions

The most immediate impact wasn't just automation, it was visibility into real customer intent.

"Customers ask questions that we had no idea they were asking… you just can't predict it."

— Jared Twitchell

For the first time, 401GO could see what users were confused about, what information was missing, and what mattered most to prospects.

This transformed the chatbot into a continuous feedback engine.

2. Stronger SEO & Content Strategy

These insights directly influenced marketing and SEO.

"They're asking those same questions in Google… if we don't have that content, we're not going to show up."

— Jared Twitchell

401GO now uses chatbot data to:

• Expand and refine FAQs
• Align content with real search intent
• Improve website clarity and discoverability

This creates a direct loop between customer conversations, content updates, and SEO performance.

3. Reduced Support Burden

By handling repetitive questions automatically, Expertise AI significantly reduced pressure on the support team.

"If we turned it off, we'd immediately have more emails and calls to the customer service team."

— Jared Twitchell

Instead of answering the same questions repeatedly, the team can now:

• Focus on higher-value interactions
• Scale support without increasing headcount
• Deliver faster responses to customers

4. Foundation for Sales Activation in HubSpot

With Expertise AI integrated into HubSpot, 401GO is now building workflows to turn conversations into pipeline.

"We're starting to have our SDR team work the leads coming in."

— Jared Twitchell

This enables:

• Capturing leads directly from conversations
• Routing them into HubSpot pipelines
• Following up with warm prospects in real time

One challenge they are actively solving:

• Distinguishing existing customers vs new prospects within HubSpot lead flows

This highlights a key evolution, from support automation to full-funnel demand conversion inside HubSpot.

5. Consolidating Chat + Lead Intelligence

Previously, 401GO would have needed multiple tools to achieve the same outcome. Now, everything is unified:

"You guys have consolidated two critical functions into one affordable app."

— Jared Twitchell

This includes:

• Chat automation
• Lead capture
• Customer insight

All working seamlessly with HubSpot.

The Bigger Shift

Before Expertise AI, 401GO's website was primarily:

• A static information hub
• A gateway to their app

Now, it functions as:

• A real-time engagement layer
• A customer intelligence system
• A lead generation channel within HubSpot

This shift enables them to move from passive traffic to active demand capture and qualification.

Final Thoughts

What would happen without it? Turning off Expertise AI would have immediate consequences:

• Increased support volume
• Loss of visibility into customer questions
• Missed opportunities to engage and qualify leads

"We'd lose the ability to follow up with warm leads… tools like Google Analytics don't give you that."

— Jared Twitchell

Unlike traditional analytics tools, Expertise AI provides individual-level interaction data, making real follow-up possible.

For Jared, the answer is simple:

"Everyone… there's no downside to knowing what your customers are asking and being able to respond instantly."

— Jared Twitchell

Especially for companies using HubSpot, the value is clear:

• Extends HubSpot's capabilities
• Improves chatbot performance
• Adds real-time intelligence to existing workflows

401GO didn't just replace a chatbot. They upgraded how their entire website operates. With Expertise AI, they now have real-time insight into customer intent, automated high-quality responses, reduced support burden, and a scalable path to turning conversations into pipeline within HubSpot.

Try it on your site

Turn your website from a passive information source into an always-on engagement and conversion layer. See how Expertise AI can fit into your HubSpot workflow at Expertise AI.