The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is helping Singaporean telco Singtel to improve the efficiency of its own call centers as the technology is giving call center agents better tools to handle inquiries from customers, said Anna Yip, deputy CEO for Singapore consumer and CEO of business development at Singtel.
During a session at Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2024, taking place this week in the Chinese city, Yip noted that the process to deploy the AI-powered customer support system took some time and added that this system can summarize, synthesize and highlight key issues by topic for the call center’s staff.
“The idea is not about replacing jobs, it’s about augmenting efficiency and effectiveness,” Yip said.
Singtel is working to make call center jobs more interesting with the aim of retaining staff as the executive said that people is no longer interested in certain jobs.
Yip also highlighted that Singtel is currently using AI to support marketing communications to develop new campaigns and carry out faster testing.
Singtel was one of the first telcos in the world to launch a 5G Standalone (SA) network. The telco completed the rollout of this network in the city state in 2022 after having launched this technology in May 2021. The 5G SA network runs on the 3.5 GHz spectrum band.
Yip stated that Singtel’s 5G SA network currently powers a number of use cases in different segments such as auto making, chipmaking, ports and warahouses. However, the executive said that new use cases will be added in the future. “There is a lot more innovation that needs to come,” she said, adding that the low-latency offered by 5G SA networks are best suited for use cases for enterprises.
In December 2023, Singtel had announced that it has successfully completed what it claims to be the country’s first trial of 5G New Radio Reduced Capability (RedCap) technology.
The Asian telco said that the trial was conducted on its live 5G network in collaboration with Ericsson and MediaTek.
RedCap, sometimes referred to as NR Light, is a reduced set of 5G capabilities intended for devices like wearables and low-cost hotspots that have low battery consumption, lower costs and lower bandwidth requirements. Introduced with 3GPP Release 17, 5G RedCap is designed for devices currently served by LTE CAT-4 but provides equivalent or better in performance with up to 150 Mbps theoretical maximum downlink throughput. This technology helps reduce the complexity, cost and size of 5G devices.
Singtel had initially launched its 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) network in September of 2020, using spectrum in the 3.5 GHz frequency as well as existing 2.1 GHz spectrum.
Source: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20240628/ai-ml/singtel-uses-ai-to-improve-its-call-center-operations