Telcos getting ready to roll out telcobots

Operators start to adopt artificial intelligence to improve customer services

New wave of telecom virtual assistants or “telcobots” are emerging as telcos increasingly start to adopt artificial intelligence to improve their customer services.

While telcos are currently prioritising these virtual assistants primarily to improve customer engagements and consequently reduce churn rates, they are also positioning themselves to compete directly with the Siris, Cortanas and Alexas.

Sarju Vasavada, industry analyst at ABI Research, said the recent introduction of virtual assistants in customer service signifies the level of urgency within telcos to start emphasising the importance of customer relationships and customer care management, something they have been taking for granted for a decade.

ABI Research forecasts that the virtual assistants will enable telcos to save $1.2 billion (Dh4.40 billion) on customer care management by 2022 with an annual growth rate of 17 per cent over the next five years.

Virtual assistant

“Case in point, Vodafone released TOBi, a virtual assistant to address their customer service woes after being fined £4.6 million (Dh22.49 million) by UK regulators Ofcom for falsely charging more than 10,000 pay-as-you-go customers for top-up credit. They also had a record-breaking number of customer complaints until TOBi stepped in,” Vasavada said.

Khalifa Al Shamsi, Chief Strategy and Governance Officer at Etisalat Group, said that telcos today play a major role in the AI revolution as it plays a critical role in enhancing customer experience, efficiency, reducing costs, increasing compliance and most of all eliminating human error.

“Our corporate strategy is focusing on driving the digital future which requires technologies like AI to bring in technology advancement and level of maturity in our services and solutions. Policymaking, regulation and governing framework will work in line to make this accessible to all end users,” he said.

ABI Research forecasts that AI investments by telcos will reach $14 billion by 2022 with an annual growth rate of 22.4 per cent.

Digital chatbot

Vasavada said that Telefónica is developing their digital chatbot, Aura for 2018, and DT’s Tinka is already averaging 50k customers in Austria every month. However, the most important point is that telcos are realising the advantages and benefits of adding virtual assistants to their arsenal for customer service delivery and are aggressive in introducing them throughout their footprint.

The fruits of early AI investments by TIER I telcos are beginning to grow with Orange and SK Telecom, both announcing the release of their multi-talented chatbots, Djingo and Nugu, respectively in early 2018.

“Telcos are slowly but steadily getting ready for prime time. We are bullish on telcos making this “Next — Gen” leap within next five years,” he said.