By Kayode Akinyemi
The Telecommunications industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world today, all thanks to the bludgeoning acquisition of mobile devices and internet connectivity by a large and diverse user base. Each day, telecommunication operators add thousands of new subscribers to their networks as they race to expand market share and control their industry.
However, this growth in subscribers base produces a fundamental challenge of its own: how to ensure service quality does not drop and how to prevent congestion problems as traditional methods of service delivery have proven to be inefficient and ineffective.
This is where Artificial Intelligence proves critical in the telecommunications industry to fill the inefficiency gap of the traditional service delivery system. AI improves telecom services by enabling predictive algorithms to reduce network downtime, optimizing network performance with real-time traffic management, automating customer service and customer experience improvement via AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants. AI also enhances security through proactive threat detection and optimizes resource allocation, ensuring better service quality for users.
According to a telecommunications operator, Mr. Sacchin Arota, quoted by Express Computer.in, the global AI market in the telecommunications sector was expected to proliferate, hitting a value of $14.99 billion by 2027, and projected to grow at an impressive 42.6 percent annually from 2021 to 2027.
Such quantum leap and growth in customer base, therefore, require some innovative solutions for sustainable and continuous good customer service and excellence customer experience. Such innovations must target operational efficiency, efficient network optimisation and maintenance, enhanced security, and efficient data analysis capability.
These critical action points help telecommunication companies reduce the cost-to-serve while elevating user satisfaction and tackling complex, high-demand infrastructure management.
As a forward looking and forward thinking organisation, Globalcom Nigeria has adopted and integrated artificial intelligence as a core innovation in its customer service tool kit. Its customer centric approach and continuous quest for service excellence led to the acquisition of an ultra-modern, resource rich Customer Experience Management platform which enables predictive data analysis, optimizes its network, boosts reduced intervention-led customer service, as well as helps how Glo is using Artificial Intelligent as enabler for customer satisfaction.
The platform is a repository of customer Information, devise usage plans and trends, a complaint management tool which helps resolve network issues and complaints on real-time basis. Unlike the old order which relied on interrogating subscribers on their complaints, the Customer Experience Management platform contains subscribers’ profiles, service records, complaint history, economic status of subscribers, categories of video streaming preferences, quality of video streaming preferences, and other critical customer Information.
In the area of network optimisation, Globacom’s Customer Experience Management platform removes the wieldy and cumbersome processes involved in “walk test” and “drive test” which required field work to determine the call drop rate, handover success rate, and call set up rate in line with industry standards. The data from these field exercises help detect where there are incidents of network congestion, network unavailability and quality issue which may cause service destruction or customer experience issues.
The CEM platform aggregates all subscribers details using their IMEI serial number and mobile device number to determine the kind of network (2G, 3G, 4G) that the subscriber latches on to which determines service quality, speed of video streaming, and ultimately the customer experience. The customer experience management platform is an artificial intelligence tools which is also equipped to generate data on each subscriber on his video streaming choices, the kind of video watched and their sources (Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, etc), location, network status in such locations, and other vital data. This assists in ultimately managing the customer experience.
The platform’s unique feature – the PCRF (policy, control, regulation, and formulation) – prioritises each subscriber’s plans and trends and adapts them to suit his preferences. It separates subscribers using high end applications from low end applications users. Reports generated from such data can help design products for different subscribers as well as helps in delivering quality service. This feature also ensures that high net worth individuals receive proper consideration in order for their customer experience not to be affected even during downtime.s
Additionally, the Artificial Intelligence tool helps Glo Nigeria identify where challenges or issues are on the network so that solutions can be quickly proffered before they trigger down time or service disruptions network wide. This is achieved through predictive Analysis from the large data generated by the platform.
Glo Nigeria constantly strives to give comfort, great value, and seamless service at all times to deliver unmatched customer experience to its teeming subscribers nationwide. As a network of choice, customer satisfaction remains the uncompromised goal as well as superior value creation.
As traffic expands on the network, artificial intelligence will help in efficient network management leading to efficient time and resource management, and customer satisfaction, customize product/service for its diverse subscribers.
•Kayode Akinyemi, Fellow of Nigerian Institute of Public Relations writes from Lagos
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