Industry

Telecom

Implementing self-service options in the telecom industry is becoming increasingly essential to efficiently manage rising customer inquiries while reducing operational costs, especially during industry shifts. AI-powered solutions such as chatbots and knowledge bases empower customers to resolve issues quickly without agent intervention–lowering costs, improving response times, and enhancing customer satisfaction.

The Challenge:

The client, a leading Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), experienced a significant increase in customer support calls after the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) expired in April 2024. The ACP provided payment assistance and free government phones. Its expiration led to higher customer costs and quicker depletion of airtime, prompting a spike in inquiries regarding account balances, application statuses, and phone replacements.

The client’s support center predominantly relied on live agents, leading to higher operational costs and slower resolution times. With the surge in calls, the client sought to maintain a high service quality– reducing wait times, improving personalization and accelerating resolution–all while optimizing operations and costs.

Our Solution:

Recognizing that enabling customers to resolve issues via self-service channels would enhance both customer and agent experiences, ResultsCX deployed an advanced Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. Seamlessly integrated with backend systems via APIs, the system leverages a self-service chatbot and our AI-driven knowledge base, SupportPredict, to deliver personalized, real-time updates—enabling issue resolution without live agent intervention.

Customer Initiation: A customer calls the client’s support center.
Self-Service Options: The IVR system offers customers the option to engage with a chatbot for updates on account balances, application status, and phone replacement.
Deflection to Self-Service: The customer selects a self-service option and is guided to the relevant resources. They can search for information or engage with an automated bot that accesses multiple backend systems to resolve their queries.
Issue Resolution: The customer resolves their issue independently through the self-service tools without requiring live agent intervention.

As part of our continuous improvement approach, we monitor and refine the self-service experience to ensure accuracy and effectiveness. Our team regularly updates the knowledge base and IVR system, tracks customer feedback to enhance overall satisfaction, and implements additional API integrations to deliver real-time, personalized responses.

The Results:

Using leading-edge self-service technologies, the solution delivered impressive business outcomes, significantly reducing operational costs and agent workload and improving customer satisfaction.

20% annual cost savings by deflecting routine inquiries to automated solutions.
45% containment rate, i.e., 45% of contacts begin on self-service channel and are resolved solely through self-service.
19.5% self-service resolution rate – resolving nearly 1 in 5 customer issues without escalating to agents.
42.87% customer satisfaction with self-service interactions.
79.7 seconds Average Handle Time (AHT), significantly improving issue resolution speed.
42.87% customer satisfaction with self-service interactions.
37% reduction in call volume over two quarters, demonstrating the effectiveness of self-service capabilities.