Zero-touch could herald new era in service provider customer interaction: Ericsson

Ericsson Consumer & IndustryLab released its latest insight report on Monday; the Zero touch customer experience - exploring the future of customer interactions with mobile service providers.

Today, smartphone users interact with operators across multiple touch points: from discovering offerings and signing up to services, to requesting support for ending a contract.

The report highlights consumers' current frustrations at their interactions with their mobile service provider, taking on average 2.2 attempts and 4.1 days to successfully complete an interaction.

This high customer effort impacts negatively on satisfaction levels.

Digitally leading brands offer the minimal effort interaction consumers prefer.

Smartphone users now expect the same hassle-free, one-click digital experience from operators.

The report highlights that mobile service providers can leapfrog to a zero-touch customer experience future by harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and analytics:

- Enabled by AI, telecom service providers could use data from earlier interactions and consumer behavior to predict what consumers need before they even contact them for support. More than half (56 percent) of smartphone users expect operators to anticipate their needs even before they realize what they are.

- While we have grown accustomed to typing, clicking and swiping on our devices, new zero-touch methods are emerging based on voice, gestures, and augmented or virtual reality. One in ten households in the United States already has a voice-enabled home assistant device such as Amazon Alexa. As voice assistants become more prominent in consumers' everyday lives, they will expect integration of support interactions over those platforms too.

"Consumers believe telecom service providers treat touchpoints like isolated interactions. Siloed focus means they miss the bigger picture. Interestingly, telecom service providers could leapfrog one-click and move from multiple-click to zero-touch by deploying future technologies in their customer offerings. The zero-touch customer experience report shows that zero-touch experiences are now an expectation of their customers," said Pernilla Jonsson, Head of Ericsson Consumer & IndustryLab.