End-to-end customer care automation at a major network operator

War is terrible, and it causes endless suffering that is not confined to the countries directly affected. Often, the smartphone is the only way for family members to stay in touch with relatives who may have had to flee abroad. That is precisely why telco networks have to keep running: the infrastructure must be protected at all costs. Automation in customer service can offset staff shortages during such events and helps the remaining team focus on the tasks that truly matter.

Reducing costs and improving service through automation

Migrating existing dialogues from various, distributed voice and text channels onto a new, consolidated platform was one of the core tasks. Only a state-of-the-art omnichannel conversational AI solution could do the job. The conversational AI platform makes it possible to develop VoiceBots and ChatBots that let the telco sustainably improve its customer communication, especially once it integrates these virtual assistants into hotlines, websites, messaging platforms, mobile apps, and other channels.

First bots up and running quickly

Just a few months after awarding the contract to CreaLog, the customer's first next-generation VoiceBots and ChatBots went live. They form the foundation for a new generation of AI-based omnichannel self-service with case-closing transactions across all channels. Step by step, more and more processes have since been automated.

A global bot for intent recognition: identifying what the customer really wants

The topics behind customer contacts are anything but uniform: from technical issues and contracts to invoices and products, all the way to contract terms and tariffs. To handle this wide range of requests, the Telco-CreaLog team built a powerful bot architecture: a global bot focuses on intents, meaning what the customer wants to achieve or find out. It then routes the request on to the appropriate expert bot. In total, the solution at this leading telecommunications provider currently comprises 157 VoiceBots and ChatBots.

State-of-the-art technology for speech recognition and playback

Customers can freely phrase their questions and requests in their own language and interact quite naturally with the ServiceBots. The entire self-service infrastructure is fully integrated into the telco's service center environment, live chat, and backend systems, and it also draws on information from third-party systems via an API interface

Self-service today: case resolution across all channels, an 85 percent success rate

Verified customers of the telco log in and fully resolve their request in a single voice or text dialogue. This lets customers independently update their address and contact details, change their available data allowance, switch tariffs, book add-on options, and much more, whether by phone or in chat. Across all digital channels, the ChatBots successfully handle a combined 5,000 requests per day. At peak load, the VoiceBot processes around 250,000 aggregated calls per day. And it does so remarkably well, as one example from July 1, 2023 shows: out of 257,636 calls, only 38,427 led to a transfer attempt to the call center — a success rate of roughly 85 percent!

Proactive ChatBots for a range of tasks

The solution also enables proactive communication with the customer when they aren't actively engaging. To do this, the ChatBot initiates questions or suggestions directly related to the topic of the page the user is currently viewing, or points out current offers, tariffs, and services. This works just as well for customers who prefer messenger services such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Viber, or others. The shared knowledge base also includes numerous answers to off-topic questions in all the languages required. The bot factors in conversational context, interprets emojis and punctuation, and, depending on the context of the conversation, can even play images or videos.