When it comes to broadband connectivity, customers expect a seamless experience, and have no patience for anything less. In the Philippines, several players are competing for customers’ attention, with cost, reliability, and customer service typically being the main reasons for choosing or abandoning a provider.
Of these, customer service is often the most overlooked component, with many businesses lacking an omnichannel approach or having slow response times.
To address these gaps in customer experience (CX) operations, Converge has invested in advanced AI technology and teamed up with Salesforce to establish an AI-driven contact centre. Jesus Romero, the telecommunications company’s Chief Operations Officer, recently discussed the details of this partnership with Frontier Enterprise.
Levelling up
According to Romero, the COVID-19 pandemic spurred hyper-growth in the Philippine broadband market, which intensified the competition.
“With the initial recovery from the pandemic and the evolving macroeconomic landscape, we are still seeing steady growth, but the market has fewer new customers, and industry-wide churn rates are higher. At the same time, customers in the Philippines demand high-quality service and can become jaded due to poor past experiences with providers,” he said.
To better serve its customers, Converge tracks key metrics such as ease of engagement, satisfaction levels, response times, and case resolution speeds — all of which rely heavily on agents.
However, as the Philippines is a major call centre destination, Converge faces challenges in staffing.
“There is intense competition for skilled talent, leading to high attrition rates, especially when agents move to better-paying opportunities. While we can refill these positions, our workforce is in a constant state of flux, and we have to train new agents repeatedly,” Romero explained.
This prompted the company to turn to generative AI for solutions. Focusing on two main areas — expanding its self-service capabilities for a smoother CX and providing greater support to its agents — Converge implemented Salesforce’s AI-driven tools, including Einstein Copilot, Service Cloud, Mulesoft, Field Service, and Tableau Pulse.
“We are supporting our agents with Einstein Copilot, which suggests responses to customer inquiries. Agents can either send these replies with one click or edit them before sending. The automation from Field Service has already improved our mobile worker productivity by 25%, and Service Cloud has increased our automatic email case conversion rate to 68%, up from just 30% previously,” Romero shared.
Customised features
One of Converge’s primary goals was to make its CX more proactive and personalised.
“For instance, instead of starting an interaction with the usual ‘How can I help you today?’ we wanted to proactively identify issues customers might be facing and offer immediate solutions. This requires using AI to analyse data that could indicate service disruptions or other problems,” Romero said.
Although Converge already had platforms capable of detecting these issues, the challenge was integrating them with customer-facing channels to provide a smoother experience.
By using Mulesoft, Converge reportedly improved the way its tools work with the Salesforce platform, linking core systems like field service, billing, operational support, and device management.
“This has enabled our agents to access a customer’s account and identify the cause of any network disruptions within seconds. Since deploying Mulesoft, we’ve improved our speed to answer by 24% while handling 38% more service enquiries,” he added.
Fine-tuning services
To ensure the success of its generative AI contact centre, Converge made a point of not automating broken processes.
“Before automating anything, we ensure the process is clearly identified and optimised, and the ideal outcome is defined. Our current focus is on improving our customer communication strategies,” Romero said.
As an example, he brings up chatbots: “We need to determine the best way to convey information. Should we automatically inform customers that a ticket has been created, or ask if they’d like us to create one? While the former might be more straightforward, not all customers appreciate that approach.”
In the end, the challenge is less about financial, cultural, or technical aspects and more about customer preferences, according to Romero.
In terms of implementation, Converge encountered a minor issue with customer data.
“We faced some challenges with the accuracy of customer addresses, which is a unique issue in the Philippines, where addresses are not always precise. This has caused some difficulties for our field service team. For example, technicians were occasionally sent to incorrect locations. However, we’ve been able to spot these problems in real time and correct them. Our goal is to develop a more accurate customer database to minimise such issues,” he explained.
Connecting the future
Looking ahead, Converge plans to be more proactive by gaining real-time visibility into customers’ issues before they even report them.
In addition, the company is working on offering personalised solutions for different customer segments. “For instance, by analysing payment patterns, we can identify customers facing financial difficulties and proactively offer solutions like flexible payment terms or alternative plans to ease financial strains,” Romero revealed.
Converge also plans to continue using other Salesforce solutions, such as Tableau, to better manage customer churn, and the recently announced Agentforce autonomous business assistants to augment its human workforce.
“Ultimately, we expect the new generative AI contact centre to boost our efficiency by 30%, allowing us to attract new customers while keeping costs and speed in check,” the COO concluded.