Published on the 26/07/2018 | Written by Heather Wright

New deal with IBM as Vodafone NZ goes Agile for automation and AI…

Vodafone New Zealand has partnered up with IBM in a combined digital transformation/customer experience program which will see increasing AI and automation of customer interaction and an agile approach to application development.

The program, dubbed the Digital Vodafone 2021 transformation program, sees the telco following Spark’s lead in going Agile in an effort to ‘be creative, flexible and design the best possible solution for the customer’.

“AI is still a very fast-moving area. The more we use it the more ways we will find it can improve our customer experience.”

Those solutions will include instant transactions, more frequent improvements to services and more self-service options. Luke Longney, Vodafone New Zealand digital lead, told iStart that ultimately anything Vodafone does for the customer over the phone or in store will be able to be done by the customer themselves ‘if they choose to’.

“We will see more features available in the MyVodafone app, new self-service options in Vodafone TV and new digital options available in our retail stores,” Longney says.

The telco is forecasting up to half of all customer interactions will be via digital channels by 2021, with 60 percent of inbound inquiries serviced with the help of virtual assistants.

Vodafone has already trialled a Watson-powered chatbot for mobile roaming queries, with the success of the chatbot – which completely resolved 88 percent of queries – prompting Vodafone to choose Watson as its preferred AI platform.

Longney says Vodafone will be using AI for both the chatbots and to help identify patterns in how customers are using services, or the problems customers are having.

“Based on what other customers have experienced or purchased, the AI platform will be able to proactively provide service, recommend products or optimise network performance,” Longney says.

“AI is still a very fast-moving area. The more we use it the more ways we will find it can improve our customer experience,” he adds.

IBM’s involvement won’t only be via Watson, with the entire program supported by IBM iX, IBM’s digital and business design agency. ‘Coaches’ from iX are in the Vodafone team helping the company transition to agile, and providing expertise in areas such as the Watson AI platform.

Vodafone says it is using IBM’s Enterprise Design Thinking ‘to ensure the company remains customer driven and focused on the right goals’.

Longney says the company will adapt Agile incrementally, scaling in the areas where it delivers the most benefit for customers and the business.

“This approach will allow the entire organisation to earn and adapt. The support of IBM’s expert coaches has been instrumental in driving successful adoption and building our internal capability,” he says.

While Vodafone may be following hot on the heels of Spark which has also been moving to an Agile work practice, one area Vodafone won’t be copying is a reduction in staff.

Spark raised the ire of employment law experts recently after nearly 2,000 product and marketing staff were given five days to sign new employment contracts requiring them to embrace agile, or take redundancy.

“Going Agile is an opportunity to improve our customer experience. It is not an opportunity to restructure or make redundancies,” Longney says.

While the pairing of Vodafone and IBM was seen by some as a strange partnership, it’s worth remembering that Vodafone chief executive Russell Stanners (well, at least until October, when he announced he will step down and be replaced by Jason Paris), has a long history with IBM. He was a 15-year IBM veteran and was in charge of the IBM/Telecom ICMS (integrated customer management solution) billing engine project in the early 1990s. The billing system remained in use until 2004 when new services such as internet and DSL broadband, meant the system built for old style PSTN voice and fax calls, was defunct and Telecom began a $66 million program to move to a newer platform.

Stanners role in the deal would ultimately lead to him moving to New York to take up a senior role in 1997 as director of telecom solutions for the tech giant.

The two companies have worked together in the past, including in 2000 when they buddied up to develop mobile business services.