Source – indiatimes.com
NEW DELHI: Country’s second-largest telecom service provider Vodafone India, in its strategic digital focus, is embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data technologies to enhance consumer experience.
The UK-headquartered telco, in its digitalisation quest, seeks to deliver instant consumer services, in tandem with arch rival Bharti Airtel’s recent push to transform information technology (IT) infrastructure.
“Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Big Data are helping us understand customer preferences better and that enable us to cater to them accordingly,” a Vodafone executive who do not wish to be named told ETTelecom.
Customers, according to the telco, proactively receive most appropriate plan or pack options to choose from basis the history of their voice and data usage.
Carriers worldwide are aggressively adopting AI, Big Data to serve customers better by integrating analytics into each customer profile thereby tracking voice and data consumption behavior and that also reduces dependency on physical customer care operations.
“At a macro level, these technologies help us design better products and services with a nuanced understanding of customers evolving needs in this fast paced dynamic industry, the executive quoted above said.
New comer Reliance Jio and market leader Bharti AirtelNSE 0.27 % are focusing on digital delivery of services for better consumer experience through in-built app to offer bill payments, plan change and value-added services (VAS).
“Through digital, we aim to bring ease of service delivery which will enable users to customize their plans online and get new or additional connections home delivered by eliminating the need for customers to visit the store,” the executive said.
The Mumbai-based telco, however, said that in a present landscape subscribers seek immediate and efficient resolution to their problems, digitalisation is the only way forward.
Analysts, however, say that telcos are aggressively moving towards embracing AI and Big Data to improve customer service that may also likely to trigger a change from a third-party vendor driven operations to in-house service delivery mechanisms that could also save their operating cost.
Earlier, Bharti Airtel’s Group Chief Information Officer Harmeen Mehta said that telecom operators’ digital strategies should be entirely built on consumer-first model as the companies seek transformation to embrace digitisation.
Last year, Vodafone has launched a chatbot TOBi which it plans to integrate with My Vodafone messaging app to handle customer-centric frequent queries including remote troubleshooting.
India’s No 2 telco, has though, recently introduced a nationwide campaign called ‘Happy to Help’ – a digital transformation initiative building on the current trend of customers moving away from assisted-only care to self-care using digital, any time service.
“As part of this program, we have transformed various customer touch points and have digitalized the entire customer journey from the users having access to various tariff plans to helping them managing multiple accounts all by themselves at just a click, the company’s executive said.
The company said that such digital initiatives help it to offer them personalized products and services to its 22.5 crore subscribers.
Building an integrated ecosystem of digital products might require upfront investments, but helps in reaping the benefits in years to come, the executive added.
