Intelligent Customer Service? Easier Than You Think.
For many telecom companies, digital transformation is tough. It requires a fundamental re-think about which products and services are worth investing in, and which ones should be left on the shelf. Some providers are making the successful push to a digital business model look easy though, one such is Vodafone UK.
Facing fallout from a number of mis-steps over the past few years, Vodafone saw complaints about it’s mobile services more than double in 20151. It found itself with the dubious distinction of being the phone network with the most complaints – nearly three times as many as any other carrier according to regulator Ofcom. It even had the Communications Ombudsman, which investigates complaints if phone companies can't resolve them itself, say it had seen “an increasing number of complaints in the last nine months”. The majority were about billing problems, but poor customer service was also cited.
"Customer service staff were failing to recognise what a complaint was, when a customer was unhappy with something. They were failing to deal with complaints.” -COMMUNICATIONS OMBUDSMAN
With customer service expectations an imperative, they began implementing processes, policies and systems that emphasised exceptional experiences. One of these initiatives, launched in April this year, was their Interactive Voice Response service, nicknamed TOBi.
Developed with IBM Watson technology, TOBi is the first live chatbot in UK telecoms. With over 55% of customers wanting instant customer support, and 75% of customers between the age of 18-25 using instant messenger everyday, the move to an app-based messaging service that delivers a conversational experience as the first point of customer contact made perfect sense.
And making sense of customer queries is at the heart of what TOBi does best. Living within the MyVodafone messaging app, TOBi aspires to replace call centres with a text service and interface more similar to chat apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
Built on IBM Watson and LivePerson’s LiveEngage platform, TOBi not only offers immediate, relevant support to resolve more than 70% of common customer queries, it can also take on additional tasks such as answering account-specific questions and even offer advice on price plans.
The Watson AI perfectly syncs with the LiveEngage platform, so customers can be seamlessly handed over to an agent when they have more complex inquiries. And because the entire chat history is scrollable within the messaging app, customers don’t have to repeat their questions, a major annoyance if I say so myself.
Of course getting people to actually use the service is also a hurdle. But Vodafone seems to be making it work. According to its Director of Customer Services and Operations, Neil Blagden, the MyVodafone app is seeing “a decent level of interaction”, with TOBi now handling 30% of all customer queries. It’s enough to position Vodafone UK as a beacon of innovation – and earn TOBi a global roll-out soon.
The use of ‘Intelligent Assistants’ such as TOBi is projected to triple through 2019 as companies aim to raise customer satisfaction and reduce overhead costs. If you’re considering the use of intelligent agents to augment your customer service capabilities, you shouldn’t be daunted by their complexity. In fact, it may the easiest project you roll out all year.
Adding a natural language interface to apps, websites or social channels is a snap with Watson Virtual Agent. No machine learning experience required. Watson Conversation is another service that makes automatically understanding and responding to customers as simple as possible. And with IBM, you also get deep analytical tools that provide insights into customer data that just aren’t available elsewhere.
If you have a question about creating an Intelligent Assistant for your business, or just want to weigh in on this topic, leave a message in the comments and I’ll do my best to reply in kind.