Vodafone will use AI to help customers calling their call center: how will it work?

If there’s one thing most Brits can agree on, it’s that customer service has gone downhill in recent years.

While the pandemic was once the excuse for poor service delivery, both the public and private sectors have continued to struggle in recent years.

One area that continues to get a slap on the wrists from the regulator is the mobile and broadband industries.

While complaints have fallen overall, some household names, including Vodafone, have come under fire for the sheer number of customer complaints.

While challenger brands can adapt, serious work is needed to turn around legacy systems that have not kept pace with customer demand and changes in technology.

It costs companies more time and money to focus on technology that serves the customer well and then make serious changes.

Jon Shaw, commercial director of Vodafone, thinks he is the man for the job.

Having already improved the company’s complaint performance, he now turns his attention to how artificial intelligence could improve service delivery.

We visited the Stoke contact center to see how he got to grips with complaints handling and where the AI ​​future is heading.

How telecom companies ‘trusted technology too quickly’

A recent Ofcom report shows that customers are still struggling to reach an agent at telecoms companies, while others say they are having to make lengthy and repeated requests to cancel.

Complaints handling remains the biggest annoyance among mobile and broadband customers.

While Vodafone’s complaints are now roughly below the industry average, it would be remiss to dismiss the remaining issues.

Shaw says telecoms companies “got too much trust too quickly” and Vodafone customers were forced to use chatbots for complex questions before they were ready.

When he took on the role two years ago, he said he wanted to make it easier to talk to Vodafone representatives. It’s a simple change, but one clearly influenced by Shaw’s years in retail.

“I wanted to create some processes to get better feedback from our frontline teams on what isn’t working. I also wanted to go through every complaint.’

The approach has paid off for Vodafone, but broader customer service remains. The over-reliance on technology that is often sub-optimal means that customers are still waiting for simple requests.

Shaw says it has led to ‘difficult conversations’ at Vodafone: ‘Rather than relying on technology to solve it for the customer, you have to actually be there for the customer… What are the things they tell us they not working? Then do something about it.’

Why chatbots haven’t worked

What Shaw seems to bring is a uniquely human side to customer service.

Automation and bots have made customer service almost meaningless for many people… but when something goes seriously wrong, it’s clear that the chatbots will fail.

Consumers in both the public and private sectors are affected. In some cases it works well, but too often consumers are let down because they can’t talk to a human.

“They’re good if it’s a very simple request, but I don’t think they’re quite at the level of Alexa and Siri, where you say more than several sentences to them.

‘It then becomes distorted and confused. That’s why we brought some of that back.

‘If it is not a very simple request, it will still end up with one of our trained colleagues.’

Instead, Vodafone extended its call center opening hours to 10pm on weekdays to better suit people’s schedules.

‘Their children are still awake, it’s too early to call… especially if I have a complicated problem. I need to talk to you, you need to be open.”

Call center staff dealing with ‘life events’ such as bereavement are trained and kept separate from other colleagues at their contact center in Stoke.

‘I know personally, when I lost my mother and father many years ago, that the companies I will always speak fondly of were the ones who made the grieving process easier and not the ones who wanted five copies of a birth certificate, and sixteen different other evidence.

“They make things more difficult during a difficult time. We’ve tried to be mindful of what we’re doing, in terms of when we need to be there.”

It’s a noble goal, but ultimately it comes down to brand perception and how it impacts Vodafone’s bottom line.

‘In the world we live in now, not just on social media but in communications in general, everyone will immediately tell everyone else about their good and bad experiences with a brand, and that’s a very good reason to try right thing to do.’

Elsewhere, Shaw has doubled Vodafone’s presence on the high street, at a time when other companies are scaling back.

Shaw says it’s not just the elderly; the reality is that most demographic groups use it, albeit for different reasons.

The stores have become so important that there is a mock-up store in the Vodafone contact center to show employees how it works in practice.

Could AI be the solution to improve services?

Despite strengthening their presence on the high street, technology remains at the forefront of Shaw’s approach to improving customer service.

‘At Vodafone we have been working on how we make AI useful for our customers and colleagues. We do not see AI as a replacement for our people, but as an improvement of our people.’

It’s a line used by most companies looking to reduce headcount over time, but Shaw is convinced it’s about helping colleagues.

“Say you call the call center, the AI ​​is almost an assistant to our agent and helps them properly diagnose what’s wrong.

‘Say you’re really experiencing signal and voice loss, the AI ​​will help them diagnose it faster – what’s the solution, is there a setting on their phone they need to change, is there something in the environment? It will look for it and do it.

‘We don’t think it’s so brilliant that AI will come along that will make us more efficient. Could it reduce our costs? We see it the other way around: it will make our colleagues even better from the customer’s perspective.’

Are employees excited about the prospect?

Discussions with Vodafone contact center staff show that there really are ways this could work.

In particular, staff at their ‘SOS’ hub, which is central to operations, said this would make their lives significantly easier.

Shaw says, “The way we’ve explained it to them and the prototypes they’ve seen and the systems they’re using so far, they’re less scared now that they’ve seen it more times.

“When we first told them we were looking at bits and pieces, they were like, what does it mean for us, I understand where this is going.”

Shaw is a breath of fresh air in what has become one of the worst aspects of dealing with a company in modern Britain.

However, it still feels too early to say whether AI will be a real solution to the problems, and it could lead to a further invasion of chatbots into our lives. Exactly the opposite of what the British are calling for.