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Telecommunications

Dell and SK Telecom Enhance Customer Experience with AI

Insights from our exciting AI collaboration to advance the telecom industry.
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This blog is co-authored by Vikas Kumar, Global Enterprise Architect, Dell Technologies, Haisung Kwon, Senior Vice President, Head of MNO AI Platform, AI Service Division, SK Telecom and JP Shin, Project Co-Lead, MNO AIX strategy, SK Telecom.

In our last blog, “AI-Phone Home,” we explored how AI is revolutionizing the telecom industry by simplifying, modernizing and automating Communications Service Providers’ (CSPs) business operations. Today we share how Dell Telargechnologies recently collaborated with SK Telecom and other partners, including Matrixx and Compax, to develop our TM Forum’s Moonshot Catalyst project – “AI chat agent: The game changer for telecoms.” The project aims to enhance telecom business operations, drive revenue growth and proactively mitigate churn, setting a moonshot vision for AI Supporting the Business of Telecoms.

Our joint goal was to enable human-like, context-specific, expert personalized customer interactions 24/7 across all digital channels. This approach will not only enhance customer’s experiences, but also reinforce the value they receive from their CSP, ultimately driving revenue growth and improving customer retention. AI chat agents can help customers in near real-time to make changes to their plans, add new family members, shop for new devices, add roaming packages while traveling and more. AI chat agents autonomously perform all these tasks, while also learning and leveraging customer’s preferences over time. Customers no longer have to wait in line for their calls to be answered or get stuck in endless phone menus. 

The Business Outcome

At its core, the value proposition of AI powered chat agents is to improve customer experience.

Advanced AI chat agents, powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) enable highly personalized interactions, enhancing user engagement and satisfaction across multiple digital channels. They do all of this while continuously learning customer’s preferences. According to research conducted by TM Forum, AI chat agents significantly improve customer satisfaction rates by providing instant, accurate and personalized responses around the clock.

    • Response Times: Customers no longer must wait in queues to get their calls answered by human agents. Instead, customers can get faster resolution of their issues, thereby improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
    • Operational Efficiency: AI chat agents autonomously handle a high volume of routine inquiries, freeing human agents to focus on more complex issues. Studies show AI chat agents can reduce customer service costs by up to 30% while handling up to 80% of routine queries without human intervention.
    • Revenue Growth: Integrating AI chat agents into telecom services like billing, payment, contact centers and digital channels can drive new business models and deliver revenue growth. AI chat agents drive upselling and cross-selling opportunities by dynamically offering new plans, new devices, roaming offers, etc., and contribute to increasing revenue through personalized recommendations.
    • Proactive Churn Mitigation: AI-driven agents are adept at sentiment analysis and can help identify at-risk customers early and offer personalized interventions to mitigate churn and revenue loss.

The Ingredients

This innovative solution, developed during the TM Forum’s Moonshot Catalyst project, is designed to achieve outcomes through several key components, all housed in the Dell Open Telecom Ecosystem Labs (OTEL):

    1. Telecom Specific Large Language Model (TSL) General LLMs often hallucinate while performing domain-specific tasks. To overcome this, we have fine-tuned LLMs specifically for telecom services by processing extensive datasets from various customer touchpoints and interactions. The Telecom LLM, with deep expertise in telecom business logic and knowledge, empowers CSPs to address customer problems quickly and accurately. This domain-specific fine-tuning enhances accuracy, reduces time-to-market and offers significant cost benefits compared to general LLMs. TSL also comes with LLM orchestrator, enabling weightage-driven (cost, latency, etc.) orchestration of LLM.  TSL is also hosted on Dell AI Factory.
    2. Mobile Network Operator AI Platform (MAP) MAP is crucial for structuring data and standardizing tasks (APIs) within the telecommunications domain. It ensures optimal data organization and accessibility, enabling the LLM and chat agent to interpret user intent accurately and execute a variety of tasks efficiently. By effectively structuring data and managing numerous business processes, MAP enhances the flexibility and accuracy of LLM/AI operations, empowering CSPs to deliver superior service with GenAI and seamlessly handle complex queries and tasks.
    3. On-Premises Telecom Cloud Platform (OTCP) OTCP provides an automated, validated and continuously integrated foundation for deploying and managing disaggregated, cloud-native BSS (Business Support System) functions. This platform includes Dell Telecom Infrastructure Blocks (DTIB) which simplify the design and deployment of cloud infrastructure. Engineered systems designed and validated with our BSS cloud software partners, these blocks include automation that streamlines the deployment and lifecycle management of the full hardware and software stack.
    4. AI Chat Agent Our AI-driven chat agent delivers human-like interactions, personalized experiences, and drives revenue through services such as data plan consulting and instant task completion, which are unattainable with traditional chatbots. This advanced chat agent ensures customers receive expert, context-specific assistance 24/7, enhancing customer satisfaction and reinforcing the value of CSP services.

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Bring AI to Your Data

This Moonshot Catalyst project empowers CSPs to harness the capabilities of LLMs for their business operations without requiring a complete overhaul of their existing BSS stacks. It showcases a fast and cost-effective implementation of GenAI services for business operations.

The solution also addresses critical data security and privacy concerns, ensuring compliance and building customer trust. This Catalyst project shows how telecoms, like SK Telecom, can integrate AI with their data while maintaining data security, privacy and sovereignty.

We just ushered in the era of LLM-powered chat agents for telecom business operations. AI is a transformational force that will redefine the telecom landscape. To learn more about this Moonshot Catalyst project or to start (or continue) your AI journey, learn how Dell can help.

About the Authors
Haisung Kwon – Senior Vice President, Head of MNO AI Platform, AI Service Division, SK Telecom

Haisung Kwon is a dynamic leader in the telecommunication industry, leveraging a diverse educational background and work experience to drive innovation and strategic growth. With a Master Business Administration, a Master of Science in Quantitative Marketing Model, and a Bachelor of Business Administration as a foundation, he brings a unique blend of business acumen and analytical expertise.

Known for creative problem-solving and customer-centric mindset, he is dedicated to driving excellence and innovation within the MNO industry. Throughout his career, he has worked in MNO marketing strategy, product planning and new business development. In 2017, he made a pivotal decision to broaden his expertise by delving into the realm of digital transformation for MNO services. With a keen eye for innovation and a passion for staying ahead of industry trends, he has excelled in his role as a Head of MNO AI Platform. In this capacity, he spearheads strategic initiatives aimed at leveraging AI technologies to drive MNO’s business transformation.

JP Shin – Project Co-Lead, MNO AIX strategy, AI Science Division, SK Telecom

JP ShinJP Shin, a Strategic Partnership Manager at MNO AIX division at SK Telecom, specializes in partnership development within the IT sector. His current focus is on developing new solutions utilizing AI to drive innovation and address industry challenges.

With prior experience as an OEM Partnership and Portfolio Manager, he identified new business opportunities in the communication industry using diverse mobile devices. Notably, he led the development of world-first innovations, including the industry’s first 5G smartphone and pioneering quantum security phones, launched in liaison with manufacturers.

Known for his exceptional communication skills across regions and industries, JP led cross-functional teams, oversaw global product planning and spearheaded groundbreaking projects at Samsung Electronics from 2004 to 2015.

With two decades of IT expertise, he is a results-driven strategist committed to pioneering new business models and delivering value-driven solutions.

Manish Singh

About the Author: Manish Singh

Manish is a well-respected industry leader with over 25 years of experience and specializes in Wireless Networks. Manish is currently the CTO of Telecom Systems Business at Dell. Before joining Dell, Manish was at Meta (formerly Facebook), where he headed the Wireless Ecosystems Program for Open RAN and Open Core Networks and was heavily involved with O-RAN Alliance and Telecom Infra Project. For three consecutive years, he also served on the Board of Small Cell Forum. Manish is a thought leader with good balance of technology depth and business acumen. Prior to Meta, Manish was VP of Network Services at Tech Mahindra. Prior to that, he served as Radisys’ CTO, where he spearheaded the company’s strategic initiatives in SDN, NFV and VoLTE (Voice-over-LTE). Prior to Radisys, Manish was the VP of Product Management at Continuous Computing, where he led the startup’s spectacular growth in Small Cells and DPI. Manish held various Management and Architect positions at Intel, Trillium Digital Systems and C-DOT over the course of his career. Manish holds an MS degree from I.I.Sc. Bangalore. He routinely appears as a keynote speaker at leading industry events. He is a thoughtful writer with copious published papers and articles and holds multiple patents in fields of computing and communications.