AI in Telecoms: From Buzz to Business Impact
A joint research paper by Harvard Business School and University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School demonstrated increased productivity and quality of results from consultants versus their baseline, demonstrating it’s not just hype—AI tools can elevate performance, but only when applied wisely. The catch? Not all AI bets pay off. Telecom leaders must sift through the sci-fi dreams to focus on practical AI investments that deliver returns now while setting the stage for tomorrow’s breakthroughs.
The study showed consultants using AI:
- Were more productive – 12.2% more tasks completed, and tasks completed 25.1% more quickly
- Delivered better quality results – 40% higher quality than the control group
- Improved performance – those with below average baseline performance increased 43% and those better performers still improved 17% by leveraging AI tools
As a telecom company decision maker, you’re responsible forr maximizing your IT investments, driving innovation, and enhancing your business performance. Using cutting-edge technology tools like AI, used in the right way, can get you there.
Where are the AI leaders finding success? A 2024 BCG report shows two key areas of AI improvements – average cost reduction of 45% and revenue growth up to 60%. They achieved these results by focusing their AI efforts on core business processes and support functions – prioritizing “people and processes,” over “technology and algorithms.”
In this article we’ll explore the practical ways AI can be applied today to improve business process and support targeted KPIs such as customer satisfaction, customer service agent productivity, and churn reduction, without heavy project investment commitments, by implementing modern SaaS cloud technology and BSS solutions. We’ll look at real-world use cases in telecom and elsewhere to demonstrate the effectiveness of appropriate AI implementations.
AI to Boost Agent Productivity
Customer service is a key business process that drives multiple telco company KPIs. That customer support function, which is so critical to telcos, is built on a high-turnover people model that requires constant onboarding and customer service training. AI-powered tools can dramatically reduce the learning curve by providing real-time guidance, answers to common customer questions, and suggesting an optimal response. This both speeds up agent onboarding and creates a best practice regimen that improves both agent and customer experience.
Along with addressing customer issues, customer service agents can also provide faster plan recommendations. With AI, agents can create a personalized plan recommendation in under 30 seconds versus what normally takes up to 5 minutes to determine using legacy tools. By speeding up this customer support response time and delivery more accurate (and profitable) recommendations aligned with real-time customer data and plan options, all parties benefit. But while mobile telco plans have been increasingly tailored to customer profiles, the huge number of options that come with hyper-personalisation can lead to customer service agent overwhelm - struggling to know what plan to recommend and when to introduce it. By leveraging the large data pools mobile telcos have available to them, AI can overcome that challenge by providing a customized plan, based on that specific customer’s data profile, in a proposal that is easy for the agent to present.
Vodafone first introduced an its AI-powered virtual assistant, TOBi, in 2017. This virtual customer service agent chatbot, operational across 13 countries in Europe and Africa, was so successful handling customer inquiries, improving agent efficiency and reducing response times, that it rolled out its improved version SuperTOBi this year.
Customers of Vodafone Portugal are already benefitting from SuperTOBi when booking appointments…first-time resolution rate has increased from 15% to 60% and Vodafone’s online net promoter scores improved by 14 points.
Beyond the customer-facing bot, SuperTOBi, Vodafone also implemented a bot assistant for its customer care employees, SuperAgent, which helps human agents quickly find answers to complex or multiple questions.
In Ireland, SuperAgent is assisting agents by sending a summary of its online customer conversation to the agent, so customers don’t need to repeat themselves. It also only uses information from Vodafone’s companywide and private knowledge database, ensuring that the information is more reliable than public sources.
Companies outside telecom are already making AI chatbots work for them. Humana, the 4th largest health insurance provider in the U.S. employs AI-powered virtual health assistants that give their patients/members immediate access to information and support – benefits, claims, and health services. This VA can guide members in finding healthcare providers, scheduling appointments, and deciphering insurance plans.
triPica employs similar technologies to help it’s telecom customers, including an AI CRM Assistant that can help its customers resolve 14% more customer calls per hour, eliminate on-hold times, and turn agents into proactive problem solver. This functionality of “CRM Agent Assistant” was initially promoted at the DTW 2024 and it was an instant hit among telecom service providers who saw triPica’s live demo. It was able to scan at the speed of light, churning though volumes of historical customer data then summarizing key customer highlights as the customer was contacting an agent for support. Instead of putting customers on hold to scroll through many windows of data, agents were able to use the quick summary generated, as the call was coming in, to welcome the customer with a very personalized message and proactive solution proposal.
AI-Driven Innovations in the Customer Journey
While AI can have significant customer service agent productivity improvements, AI can also boost results through processes not requiring human interventions within the customer journey.
Applying hyper-personalization, by having AI analyze customer behaviors real-time, can help telcos recommend products, services or upgrades that are tailored to the individual customer preference. This not only improves the customer experience, but it also boosts upsell opportunities.
Deploying AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can help customers navigate on their own, reducing their need for human intervention, ensuring 24/7 support. This is especially true of customers who are “digital natives,” who are more willing to avail themselves of online resources.
Orange has been using AI to enable a "zero-touch" customer journey, where users can set up their services without needing human support. Their AI-powered chatbot can activate services, troubleshoot issues, and even offer real-time plan upgrades based on the customer’s usage patterns. Orange has found that it’s AI chatbot handled 80% of frequently asked questions, freeing up human customer service agents for more complex questions.
triPica’s AI chatbot delivers a productivity increase of up to 40% for its telco customers, so they can leverage the benefits of AI technology as they streamline operations and maximize their human assets.
In banking, HSBC launched "Amy" in 2017. An AI-powered chatbot, it helps customers manage their finances, handle transactions, and resolve issues without any needed human interaction. Implementing this AI-driven process has transformed HSBC’s customer journey, making it faster and more efficient while offering personalized support based on data coming from transaction histories and user behaviors.
AI for churn avoidance and loyalty
Predicting churn before it happens is where AI can do its best work. AI algorithms can analyze customer data to predict churn with remarkable accuracy, by identifying at-risk customers based on behavioral patterns, service usage, and historical trends. Identification based on these AI triggers can allow telcos to take proactive steps to retain the customer before they think about leaving for another provider. The customer can be offered tailored offers, targeted discounts, or enhanced service upgrades to encourage them to stay.
AI-powered loyalty programs can also be optimized and tailored to specific customer preferences and behaviors. This level of personalization helps build deeper customer relationships, keeping them engaged longer.
Telefónica’s AI platform, called Aura, helps predict customer churn by analyzing millions of data points, from billing history to service usage patterns. With this data, the platform triggers personalized retention offers in real-time, reducing churn rates and boosting loyalty. Aura is built on the Telefónica’s 4th platform, leveraging the data from its other platforms – Platform 1 (network and other physical assets), Platform 2 (IT assets), and Platform 3 (products and services). Platform 4 was designed to “collect, store, analyse and understand customer data in real time and offer them personalised experiences.”
triPica has similar integrations built into its BSS and mobile app, an AI-enriched Customer Value Management (CVM) innovation that helps its telco customers propose the best promotions based on customer behaviours.
Another example outside telecom, Spotify uses AI to predict which users are likely to cancel their subscriptions. By analyzing listening habits and engagement levels, the AI platform triggers personalized retention campaigns such as targeted emails offering exclusive playlists or discounted subscription rates. This proactive approach helps retain customers and increase lifetime value.
Spotify’s uses AI “to process a vast array of your engagement data, including the songs, podcasts, and audiobooks you’ve listened to, when you listened to them, and what led you to them…The app is always learning, constantly running micro tests with user groups.” This alignment with their audience is largely responsible for a user base and revenue increase of over 1,000% in the last decade, with more than 600 million users.
Turning AI talk into action
Business leaders both inside and outside the telecom industry are taking a targeted approach to implementing AI. Telco leaders can see similar improvements in their business KPIs by taking a similar approach.
As we explored, there are opportunities to reduce onboarding time for agents using AI-powered real-time coaching tools. The faster agents become proficient, the quicker they can deliver high-quality service, which directly impacts customer satisfaction and your Net Promoter Score (NPS).
You can also transform the customer journey with AI-powered self-service tools like virtual assistants and chatbots. These solutions reduce operational costs, improve response times, and elevate customer satisfaction by providing tailored, instant service.
And finally, using AI and leveraging customer data, you can predict and prevent churn of customers most at risk. You can deploy targeted interventions with personalized offers, loyalty rewards, and service adjustments, before customers decide to leave.
Where should your AI implementation journey begin? Companies often try to integrate AI technology into legacy systems with mixed results. Taking a legacy BSS and applying AI tech tools to that platform often ends in frustration as the less-nimble coding and procedures often hamper the AI’s effectiveness, throwing up roadblocks along the way. By instead utilizing a modern SaaS technology platform with an open architecture, AI is freed up to gain insights from the massive volume of data and get to work serving up customized results and generating significant ROI’s.
triPica’s modern platform allows you to deploy AI-powered solutions fast, so you can maximize your IT investment and transform your customer journey. Schedule a consultation with a triPica expert to learn more about how you can leverage AI in your business today.
