AI, or artificial intelligence, is certainly having a moment right now – and, in the world of telecoms, it’s already helping businesses dream up some fantastic new effort-crunching solutions.
As they say, dream it, and AI can do it – at least, that’s the idea! As experts in business telecoms, Planet Telecom has its fingers on the pulse when it comes to the latest technological breakthroughs – and in this guide, we’re going to share with you some of our favourite AI innovations.
These AI telecoms solutions help your customers and callers and boost your revenue and income over time. Let’s explore the best of the best, and how they’re changing the telecoms game.
AI can predict anomalies and maintenance needs
If you’ve any experience in running your own business telephony, you’ll know that some telecoms systems can fail due to unexpected anomalies, leaving business owners facing serious downtime. That’s going to mean a loss of revenue and even reputation among customers.
However, AI is now at such a point where it can predict potential network failures and anomalies based on precedents you set for it to analyse. What’s more, you can use AI to schedule maintenance ahead of time, so your networks can effectively self-heal!
Using AI with automation in this way means you can expect very little downtime – and, in time, you might expect your telephony to take care of itself without the need for people to get involved.
Above all, you consistently ensure customers receive the best possible service and avoid spending a fortune on maintenance and repairs.
AI can optimise your network efficiency
AI can also manage network traffic incredibly efficiently on its own! The right technology can take control of network routing by analysing data traffic patterns and allocate resources to the right places. That means, again, network users and end customers can expect incredible uptime.
Poor latency and peak resource usage can lead to frustrating network issues. Using AI, it’s entirely possible to switch to more efficient resources automatically, meaning your customers can still reach you when they need you.
Having a system that can feasibly boost its own performance without the need for technicians having to physically intervene saves you time, money, and effort. In time, we’ll all have AI-managed networks that optimise themselves – it’s the future of convenience!
AI can provide complete virtual assistance
Companies are already saving money in employment overheads by delegating customer service tasks to AI –available 24/7 to handle a huge range of low-level queries through virtual assistants.
AI assistants are getting smarter. Your customers can now call in to ask for help with billing, technical problems, or general enquiries – and receive straightforward answers from an automated service.
There will always be a need for human support when it comes to more complex queries that depend on understanding context. But perhaps most interestingly, AI is now able to interact with customers in several different languages!
That means customers can call and request support in their native tongues without you needing to employ multilingual staff. It’s also a great way to expand your customer base and, therefore, boost global revenue.
The 24/7 element of virtual assistance, too, ensures that companies maximise their opening hours without needing to physically be in work. Beyond this, delegating low-level queries to AI also means that human personnel can focus on more important tasks and projects elsewhere.
AI is also helping customers make real-time changes to their services and packages, for example, by adding extra call or data credit on demand, raising automatic fix requests to technical support teams, and even cancelling or retaining customer contracts. It effectively removes many midpoints where everyone loses time, money, and patience!
AI can inform sales and marketing strategies
Let’s step away from service for a moment. AI is already proving highly useful for companies focusing on becoming more data-driven in terms of sales analytics and customer outreach.
AI can amass data from vast waves of customers and segment it, helping companies to understand groups and demographics clearer. AI can then help businesses drill down into their customer groups’ service needs, helping them create more relevant messages and recommendations.
What’s more, AI is proving adept at tapping into hidden correlations and patterns in sales and usage data. By simply running in the background, AI can help sales teams find interesting opportunities to cross- and up-sell products and services that might otherwise go unnoticed.
The benefits here work twofold. Customers can expect a more personalised experience tailored to their specific needs, and in return, businesses can drive more revenue through adding on services.
Crucially, AI is giving sales and marketing teams incredible insight into passive or subconscious user behaviour that might otherwise go completely unnoticed.
What’s more, this automated support means human personnel don’t have to spend hours out of their days poring through numbers to look for patterns in buying and usage behaviour – AI works lightning fast to provide actionable insights.
AI can break down bills with ease
With the greatest will in the world, human error is inevitable. It’s one of many reasons why AI is so prevalent in corporate administration right now – and, one of the key areas where AI is reducing errors is through bill production.
AI can provide detailed bills to customers, even with personalised explanations about their specific usage. This helps eliminate egregious errors and enables customers to trust telecom companies even more.
Companies, too, benefit – in much the same way. A business running comms through an AI-ready billing service always know what they’re paying for, reducing the need to raise complaints with telecoms operators and clamping down on potential fraud.
Tying AI to usage data reduces complaint volumes, as customers will always be able to see what calls they’ve made, and how they are charged.
Some experts estimate that billing errors cost companies tens of thousands of pounds every month. By implementing AI billing, that cost could almost evaporate overnight.
What’s more, it’s entirely possible to train AI to look for errors and red flags as and when they arise, making it easier to weed out fraudulent usage and dispute charges.
AI can predict when customers are likely to leave you
No, really! Predicting customer churn can be a bit of a nightmare in some respects, as we can never truly know what one client will do compared to another. However, again, AI can tap into customer analytics and measure behaviour over time, deciding which buyers and clients are likely to jump ship to a competitor before anyone else.
For example, AI can aggregate feedback from customer surveys and monitor service usage to identify who’s most likely to cancel contracts. AI can then suggest to retention departments how to keep these clients interested and happy to stay with them.
For instance, that could mean personalising customer care or presenting special offers. Ultimately, using AI to measure customer churn could help businesses build trust with disappointed clients and, therefore, make their services more valuable.
The company benefits, of course, as it means revenue loss is dramatically reduced.
AI is helping to prevent mass fraud
As we’ve already discussed in a few different ways, AI is great at spotting potential fraud and ensuring action is taken. This is largely because it can sweep across huge amounts of data and spot anomalies that would take human eyes several hours—even days—to scan.
AI can strengthen telecoms for businesses and customers alike by learning from what’s normal and then picking out any mysterious network or usage behaviour. That means customers are saved from any potential loss of data or money, and companies can breathe a sigh of relief when it comes to reputation.
Fraud prevention is hugely important for businesses of all sizes. Customers want to know that their data is safe with companies that have genuine safeguards. While AI is still in its infancy when it comes to fully delegating security measures, such as protecting customer data and enhancing network protection, it’s become increasingly more reliable in just the past few years.
At the very least, businesses can now use AI alongside human personnel to provide more secure customer experiences. In a day and age where user data is at risk more than ever, that kind of protection shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Conclusion
Many people are waking up to the true potential of AI for service convenience and efficiency. It’s still technology that’s in its infancy – but in the long term, most companies will be using AI to help bolster their communications and to deliver even better services to their customers.
Why should you have to miss out? As a Planet Telecom customer, you’ll have access to the latest in telecoms tech to keep your customers thrilled and keep your business running ten steps ahead of the competition.
Take a closer look at the services and packages we currently offer, and call or email our team to get started.
