How Scandinavia’s largest telco is enhancing customer experience with conversational AI
With over 20 unique integrations, Telenor’s AI voice agent is one of the most advanced of its kind.
In 2024, enhancing telecom customer experience is still a primary concern for all telecom companies. Already, in 2022, the American Customer Satisfaction Index research revealed that telcos placed last in customer satisfaction when ranked against other private sector companies such as banks and insurance firms. Given customers’ highly heightened expectation of technical savvy and fast responses, telecom companies must take concrete steps to ensure they can deliver a consistently satisfying business-to-consumer experience. Investing in customer service infrastructure, formulating policies that help maintain effective communication channels with customers, and developing a better customer service strategy could all contribute to telecom customer experience improvement.
This very issue was at the center of Norwegian telecommunications giant Telenor’s drive to digitize its customer service offerings with the introduction of conversational artificial intelligence. “Communication is at the heart of everything we do at Telenor,” says Anna Måsender, the company’s Head of Customer Service. Måsender is principally responsible for Telenor’s omnichannel support strategy and is spearheading the adoption of automated online chat as a leading method of company-customer communication. “Customers come to us with issues that are important and individual to them, and we need to be both easily accessible when they require it, and capable of making them feel reassured. Conversational AI presents itself as the perfect platform to achieve these goals,” adds Måsender.
One of the most advanced of its kind
In late 2022, Telenor approached Maxin Group Limited to develop an innovative solution that would allow its customers to take advantage of the company’s wide portfolio of products and services with as little friction as possible. This took the form of an ai voice customer service virtual agent named Telmi that, today, can be easily accessed via the telco’s website and telephone systems. Thanks to deep learning algorithms and natural language technologies, Telmi is able to understand and interact with customers at an advanced conversational level, delivering near-instant assistance at far greater speeds than traditional customer service channels.
Telmi also currently offers over 20 unique integrations, making it one of the most advanced virtual agents of its kind in the world. “Integrations are a key part of Telmi’s functionality, giving our customers agency over the process by incorporating their subscription and services into every interaction,” says Jens Mosbergvik, Head of Operational Support, Customer Care. “We learned early on that customers are not simply looking for answers but require tangible solutions. It’s a small difference, but a crucial one.”
In order to deliver these solutions, Telmi offers a range of functionality to customers who are logged into their Telenor account, including requesting a PUK code, upgrading their mobile data plan, or viewing their invoice directly in the chat window. “Telmi can access a customer’s account and retrieve the information that they need, instantly,” says Morten Lossius, an AI Trainer who is part of the team at Telenor responsible for bringing Telmi online. “If a customer needs more data, for example, Telmi orders it for them, so that they can continue to use their phone without any downtime,”
The AI trainer team is in charge of measuring the experience and satisfaction of customers as they interact with Telmi. They do this via Maxin Group’s easy-to-use software which allows them to monitor the quality of each integration, improving the virtual agent and continuously striving towards a better telecom customer experience.