TELUS revolutionizes CX with 24/7 asynchronous support

TELUS is a world-leading communications technology company, generating over $20 billion in annual revenue and connecting more than 19 million customers through its advanced suite of broadband services, including internet access, voice communication, entertainment, healthcare, smart home automation, and IPTV services for consumers, businesses, and the public sector.

The business goals

TELUS’ traditional call centers were facing increasing pressure due to rising operational costs and evolving customer expectations. To meet those challenges, TELUS wanted to optimize its customer support operations to deliver a superior customer experience.

The project involved managing demand peaks, increasing app adoption, and improving customer satisfaction by offering round-the-clock support–all while reducing the cost of customer service.

The company set an ambitious goal: to revolutionize customer service and set a new standard in the industry by encouraging asynchronous messaging through its My TELUS Mobile App. This initiative was focused on creating a seamless, efficient, and satisfying customer experience, while also reducing costs.

In order to achieve these goals, TELUS needed a solution that could deliver fast time-to-value, meet aggressive timelines, and scale across incremental and new channels.

A solution built on partnership

TELUS turned to TELUS Digital to run a managed service for this initiative, leveraging its expertise in app development.

When choosing a technology partner, TELUS Digital selected Local Measure’s contact center platform, which has since been acquired by Zendesk under the product name Zendesk Contact Center. The platform is powered by AWS and Generative AI (Gen AI), and was selected for its depth of capability in asynchronous messaging, coupled with its out-of-the-box Gen AI features.

TELUS Digital noted that the platform had many industry-specific use cases for telco pre-built out of the box. The flexible and extensible agent desktop was able to seamlessly integrate into a home-grown CRM to give agents a true single pane of glass for the contact center.

TELUS Digital considers Zendesk Contact Center a comprehensive solution providing the company with a seamless messaging experience within the My TELUS mobile app.

Technological innovation

TELUS Expert Messaging launched in June 2024 as a cutting-edge customer support tool seamlessly incorporated into the company’s existing My TELUS app. The solution was deployed in half the typical time for this scale of project at TELUS.

The My TELUS app offers an intuitive user experience, allowing customers to access human support 24/7. They can do this by sending a message from their mobile device and receiving a notification when an expert has responded, often resolving their inquiry in a single message.

The flexible and convenient asynchronous chat feature eliminates wait times associated with traditional phone and live chat queues. Agents can effortlessly start and oversee conversations, receive timely notifications, and access chat history. Advanced intelligent routing capabilities ensure that customer inquiries are directed to the most suitable agent or self-service resource.

TELUS Expert Messaging utilizes Gen AI Tools from Zendesk Contact Center to enhance agent productivity and accuracy. Powered by Amazon Bedrock and Anthropic’s latest Large Language Models, the AI Tools function as an agent co-pilot, improving the speed and accuracy of agent responses. This is accomplished through automatic spelling and grammar correction, content creation and translation, form completion, and auto summarization of transcripts for after-call work.

In addition, seamless integration with existing TELUS systems and infrastructure ensures a smooth customer journey. This includes automatically authenticating customers from their My TELUS app profiles, automatically retrieving and opening customer accounts in the CRM, and automatically pushing account notes during after-call work into the CRM.

Customer-obsessed innovation

The initiative underscores TELUS’s commitment to continuous improvement and customer-centric innovation. The shift towards asynchronous messaging aligns with the company’s cost-saving goals and provides customers with a more satisfying and flexible way to interact.

The seamless Gen AI integration has improved agent efficiency and significantly reduced handling costs. The enthusiastic customer adoption has reaffirmed TELUS’s position as a forward-thinking leader in the telecommunications industry.

Results

TELUS Digital’s implementation of Zendesk Contact Center has resulted in a groundbreaking customer support solution for TELUS. This solution merges a native mobile experience with advanced AI capabilities, leading to a substantial enhancement in customer satisfaction and a decrease in call center volume.

The project is anticipated to generate a substantial return on investment (ROI) by enhancing efficiency and saving costs. Since its launch, the asynchronous chat feature has:

— Improved customer experience with 24/7 asynchronous availability, increased support accessibility, and greater convenience for customers.

— Improved First Contact Resolution (FCR) by 5 percentage points compared to voice after the first four months, with further improvement projected.

— Enabled operational agility by smoothing demand in peak periods like Black Friday and Boxing Week.

— Increased agent efficiency with GenAI-powered tools, empowering agents to handle more inquiries efficiently and reducing after-contact work time by more than 50 percent compared to voice.

— Unlocked rich data-driven insights provided by the platform on customer behaviors and agent performance, enabling data-driven decision-making.

“This partnership has introduced a first-class messaging system expertly blending AI efficiency with the best of personalized human support,” says Zainul Mawji, executive vice-president and president, TELUS Consumer Solutions. “We continue to set ourselves apart, advancing in our journey of responsible digital transformation with a steadfast focus on customer experience.”