Tele2, a Russian mobile operator, conducted a study on how customer preferences in the service are changing. Most prefer to resolve issues on their own, without communicating with a specialist – 94% of subscribers turn to their personal account. Customers are getting used to automation in service – they are less annoyed by the chatbot, 75% of subscribers stay in it to resolve issues.
Tele2 analyzed customer requests based on four remote support centers: in Rostov-on-Don, Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk and Saransk. The remote service covers 40 service channels – this is not only traditional support in the form of calls, but also service in social networks, instant messengers, chats with a specialist in your personal account. Tele2’s remote service receives 70,000 calls every day, experts serve 9,000 chats in digital channels. For a 9-hour shift, one Tele2 expert receives an average of 104 calls or processes 70 chats.
One of the obvious trends in the service is the transition of client traffic to digital channels. At the end of 2022, the number of requests in digital channels was 2.5 million, but according to forecasts, this figure will increase to 4.5 million in 2026. During this time, request traffic in digital support channels will grow by 80%. At the same time, the number of calls is decreasing. In 2020-2022 it decreased by 28% – this is the result of the choice of customers in favor of digital channels, the My Tele2 mobile application and the development of automation in support. According to forecasts, by 2026 the downward trend will slow down – the number of calls-calls will decrease by 8% by 2022.
The main support channel is automated channels. If the “live” service – calls and digital channels – accounts for approximately 34% of calls, then robotic systems (chat bots and answering machine) take on the remaining 66% of requests. According to forecasts by remote service analysts, by 2026 this breakdown will not change significantly – about a third of requests (32%) will still fall on the “live” service.
The study also records an increase in complex inquiries and claims. In 2022, the share of such requests was 33%, in this year it increased to 39%, in 2026 it will be more than 40%. This is not due to the fact that there are more dissatisfied customers in the support channels. On the contrary, self-service channels (personal account and robots) are increasingly taking over the processing of requests, so the share of complex requests in the total traffic is growing.
Approximately 25% of customers demand that the chatbot immediately connect them with a “live” operator, the rest give the robot a chance to solve their problem. At the same time, it is noted that the chatbot has become “wiser” – the accuracy of query recognition has improved by 4 p.p. compared to 2021. It more effectively analyzes the subscriber’s consumption profile and immediately transfers it to a specialist if the client is annoyed. Bot automation led to an increase in customer satisfaction with them from 33% in 2021 to 75% in 2022.
Elena Yurina, director of remote service Tele2:
“We closely monitor any fluctuations in customer habits and change service processes in response to their request. It’s great that customers are increasingly giving chatbots a chance – this shows that robots have become smarter, learned to solve customer issues and connect the subscriber with a “live” operator without resistance. The growth of digital traffic is pushing us to fine-tune the service in these channels. Our experts easily adapt to clients, use an informal style of communication, empathize with the interlocutor and want to solve his problem, no matter what the cost. All this makes our service special and distinguishes it in the mobile communications market.”
