Elevating telecom customer service

Enriching critical customer interactions with contact center AI

In a competitive industry where subscriber growth rates have stagnated in the low single digits and customer churn runs high, revolutionizing the telecom contact center with generative artificial intelligence (AI) promises to be game-changing. By enabling less robotic, more human-like interactions with virtual agents and equipping live agents with more robust insight, generative AI can help CSPs wow customers, build brand loyalty, and boost revenue.

AI in call centers is not new to the telecom industry. Operators have been early and successful adopters of conversational AI, which uses natural language processing (NLP) to power interactive voice response (IVR) or virtual agents and chatbots to resolve simple customer queries. The gains have been impressive. Research by the IBM Institute for Business Value shows that 97% of operators using virtual agent technology (VAT) reported a positive impact on customer satisfaction.

But conversational AI has limits. While it automates tasks and provides predefined responses to customer inquiries, complex queries exceed a basic bot’s capabilities. And dialects and background noise challenge its ability to understand requests or questions.
 

Generative AI: Empowering customers, elevating employees

Adding generative AI alongside conversational AI positions CSPs to reimagine the omnichannel customer journey, enhancing the contact center experience for both customers and employees. AI offers self-service functionality that lets customers discover new service options and resolve invoice, technical, and service queries quickly. Generative AI also allows customers to interact with the contact center in their preferred channels and language of choice. Because generative AI models can be fine-tuned using industry- or organization-specific data, virtual assistants can be more effective and appear more intuitive as they serve customers.

Equally, generative AI can optimize human agent performance and improve the agent experience. The technology primes live agents to deliver high-touch care with machine learning-driven agent assist and AI coaching that includes simulated virtual learning and just-in-time feedback and support. Generative AI tools bolster operational efficiency by searching extensive repositories of documentation, CRM systems, and call transcriptions to feed contact center agents answers in real time, helping them solve complex customer issues.

Additionally, agents can take advantage of customer engagements to upsell or cross-sell based on suggestions from generative AI—turning customer interactions into a revenue-driving advantage. Generative AI can integrate customer data from device, network, and service usage; mobile applications; locations; and invoices to create personalized recommendations.

But CSPs are at various stages of adoption of contact center AI. Some are using AI-powered chatbots and IVRs backed by integrated workflows across multiple systems for simple customer queries. Others are augmenting human agents with more advanced AI capabilities such as speech-to-text processing and natural language understanding of customer sentiment. Can CSPs make the leap from their current contact center state to implementing a generative AI solution that helps fuel growth?

Progressing to an AI-first approach: CSPs can use AI and other emerging technologies to shift customer care from cost center to revenue generator.

Download the report to explore our framework for AI adoption in telecom contact centers. Experts from TIM Brasil and IBM outline how digital transformation drives an AI-first approach to customer care, risks CSPs must consider when adopting generative AI, and steps telecom leaders can take to reinvent their contact centers using generative AI.