Transforming from a predominantly voice contact centre to one leveraging AI for customer service, Telstra has come a long way in its simplification roadmap. Starting with infusing AI into a customer-facing chatbot, the leading telecommunications provider has since expanded to multiple internal and external use cases, stated IBM on its official blog.
Back in February this year, Telstra confirmed reduction in the number of calls to its contact centre by 19 million since 2016.
Evolving Codi into a digital concierge
Telstra’s first piece of AI technology called Codi was initially a routing bot developed to understand a customer’s need and direct them to a live chat agent, IBM revealed.
“With the help of IBM Watson, Codi has since evolved into a digital concierge who can offer customers answers in real-time.”
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Partnering with IBM, Telstra enhanced Codi’s capabilities as a Virtual Agent by fine-tuning Codi’s natural language engine. With a range of potential use cases for Code like Virtual Agents, Telstra have expanded their chatbot network.
Around nine chatbots operate within a variety of functions, from an ACE bot assisting field service engineers with troubleshooting to product-specific bots, like Simmo, tasked to answer questions about pre-paid products.
IBM said Telstra is now looking to expand into voice bots and AI integration into human resources department targeting automation driven improvements in customer interaction.
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Telstra recently replaced Telstra 24×7 app with the new MyTelstra. The app in its earlier avatar had about 4mn active users. Telstra believes the new app will provide improved personalisation and promotional offers.
In comparison, Commonwealth bank app has over 5 million Australian users with about 64% transactions online while Suncorp has significant initiatives planned in the digital space as well as indicating a trend to provide customer service online while reducing the load on call centres and optimising costs.
Telstra revealed it is on track to achieve its goal to reduce $2.5bn costs by FY 2022. Digitisation, Automation, Simplification and offshore tech centre in Bengaluru are expected to deliver greater cost benefits for Telstra.
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Other Players, Different Digital Measures
National Australia Bank recently launched Voice ID biometrics service to reduce load on its contact centre and improve customer experience.
The big bank also embraced Whatsapp and iMessage for better customer service.
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