Vodafone amplifies call center innovation, customer service, and employee inclusion with Azure AI

With a focus on Europe and Africa, Vodafone serves more than 330 million customers in 15 countries and has partnerships with mobile networks in 43 additional countries, making it one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. “Our mission has always been to connect people and data for a better future by enabling inclusive and sustainable digital societies,” says Ignacio Garcia, CIO Italy & Global Director Data Analytics and AI, Vodafone Group. “We are constantly looking at new ways to bring better and more service to our customers through research, development, and experimentation with new technologies.”

Vodafone offers a wide variety of products and services to serve and connect its customers. These include a range of the latest mobile technologies, smartphones and devices, and digital connectivity and solutions for Internet of Things (IoT), such as smart sensors to monitor for water leaks. It also provides fixed broadband and superfast Wi-Fi connectivity, underpinned by one of the largest next-generation networks in Europe, servicing many millions of households and businesses. Not least, the company boasts one of the biggest and most successful digital TV platforms in Europe. In Africa, Vodafone provides financial and digital services at scale, helping users across multiple countries make mobile money transfers, pay for goods, and access vital online applications through their mobile phones. The company also offers roaming services that connect hundreds of millions of mobile customers across the world, ensuring seamless connectivity for travelers and international users.

“Every day, our strategy is to make sure no one is left behind,” says Garcia. “So, yes, we are also focused on expansion and serving more people and businesses, but that same strategy applies to our own employees too.” Vodafone knew that by empowering its call center employees with cutting-edge tools and resources, it could improve customer interactions and drive better experiences for both customers and its call center agents. It also wanted to give employees the ability to develop their own solutions to tackle real-time operational issues—and fuel the culture of innovation and inclusion within the company even more.

“We aim to provide fast, personalized customer experiences that inspire confidence,” says Ahmed Elsayed, CIO UK & Europe Digital Engineering Director at Vodafone Group. “But to continue to do that in the face of rising customer expectations, we needed to find a way to better handle complex customer inquiries efficiently and ensure timely and personalized responses.”

Rapid issue resolution

Wanting to use generative AI technology to bring more highly personalized and differentiated customer experiences across multiple channels, Vodafone chose to collaborate with Microsoft for its AI leadership, especially in responsible AI, under a far-reaching strategic partnership, announced earlier this year. “Beyond the technology, the Microsoft commitment to responsible AI was a differentiator,” says Garcia. “As we work with new technologies to build the inclusive digital communities of tomorrow, this is a critical foundation.”

Vodafone chose to use Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Studio, and Microsoft Copilot, along with Azure AI Search, to support two different kinds of virtual assistants. One is an enhancement to its existing chatbot, TOBi, serving customers at the frontline, addressing more common questions like account status or simple technical troubleshooting. The other is a conversational AI search interface, called SuperAgent, to support Vodafone’s human agents in responding to more complicated customer inquiries. The company worked with its call center in Corso, Italy, to understand the depth and breadth of customer questions and agent needs. It also aimed to pilot the two solutions at the call center before deploying them to the greater enterprise.

Elsayed says that the process of building enterprise-grade AI solutions was simplified with Azure AI Studio. “Part of using new technologies is experimentation and the ability to easily collaborate. With Azure AI Studio, you can interact with other people and with projects through a code-first approach to seamlessly explore, build, test, and deploy, using cutting-edge AI tools and machine learning models.”

With Azure OpenAI Service models as a foundation, TOBi can take advantage of generative AI to understand and respond to user inputs more intelligently and personally than traditional chatbots. “TOBi can now use Azure OpenAI Service for context-aware conversations, adapting its responses based on the ongoing dialogue with a customer,” explains Beverley Bartlett, Head of Digital Care at Vodafone Group. “So, the conversation is more natural, and our customers are more able to have their questions answered, as well as enjoy the experience more.” Bartlett says TOBi can do anything from assisting a customer in paying their bills to helping them with network issues to ordering them a new phone. If TOBi is unable to answer a customer question, it automatically transfers the customer to a human customer support agent.

“TOBi sends a summary of its customer interaction to the live agent, so they can jump right in,” says Bartlett. “If, for some reason, the agent needs additional support, they have SuperAgent.” SuperAgent helps live agents solve more complicated problems by locating relevant information within the Vodafone knowledge database. “It mirrors Microsoft Copilot to help our live agents look up detailed information, ensuring they can rapidly resolve issues and provide more personalized customer care,” says Bartlett. In the past, an agent might have had to scroll through a 20-page PDF to answer a technical question, which would disrupt the customer experience. Now, SuperAgent automatically calls up the right information in seconds.

Elsayed adds that, with generative AI, the information that comes back to the live agent isn’t generic or vague. It’s specific and delivered in a more natural and dynamic language that agents can easily and immediately use with customers. “Our aim is to resolve specific customer issues as quickly as possible, and our SuperAgent can help our employees do that,” says Elsayed.

In addition, SuperAgent has a quality assurance element that evaluates call and chat transcripts against compliance checks (such as policies and regulations) to assess risk and training needs. “This helps increase the capacity and accuracy of SuperAgent over time—as well as the skills of our employees,” adds Elsayed.

Increasing customer satisfaction

“By working with Microsoft and using generative AI, we now have two powerful generative AI solutions—a supercharged virtual assistant that responds even faster to common questions and a SuperAgent that helps live agents solve complex customer problems,” says Garcia.

Garcia adds that early reports from the Corso call center indicate both employees and agents are benefiting. Currently, TOBi handles nearly 45 million customer calls a month, fully resolving 70% of customer inquiries coming through the company’s digital channels. An additional 30% are directed to a live customer care agent that can count on SuperAgent for support. On average, customer call times have been reduced by at least one minute, saving both customers and agents time. Customer satisfaction scores are up since the use of generative AI–powered TOBi and SuperAgent, and this bodes well for Vodafone as it maps a rollout of the two solutions to additional call centers further afield.

Another benefit of Vodafone’s AI journey has been extending the use of Azure AI Studio to other employees. For example, the company is training senior call center operators at Corso to create solutions that assist them in their daily work. “To us, this helps in driving innovation and enhancing everyone’s capabilities. We are furthering inclusion through the democratization of technology,” says Garcia.

Bartlett agrees. “The impact of generative AI is enormous and has huge potential for Vodafone and our customers. Expanding its use across our company, our network, and within customer solutions perfectly aligns with our mission of connecting for a better future,” she says.

Concludes Garcia, “We’re still on our journey with AI, but with the support of Microsoft, the roadmap is clear.”

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