Revolutionize non-face-to-face channels with AI

-- First, please tell us about the position and role of the call center in Japan Post Bank.

Mr. Yamaura
Our customer touch points are broadly divided into "face-to-face channels" and "non-face-to-face channels," but the main customer touch points are face-to-face at stores. The call center will be positioned as the most human-touch customer contact point among non-face-to-face channels. When it became difficult to meet face-to-face due to the COVID-19 this time, the call center, which plays a part in the non-face-to-face channel, showed its presence. In April and May 2020, number of call center calls reached about twice the normal number. We believe that the existing system to provide service centered on face-to-face channels will need to be reviewed in the future.

The call center has two roles. One is to firmly "respond to customer phone inquiries", and the other is to "share information within the company" with voice of the customer.

For the first role, while our products and services are being digitalized (Yucho Pay app, Yucho Authentication app, Yucho Bankbook app, etc.), it will be critical for our call center to navigate through our customers who are not accustomed to the Internet environment and smartphones, including elderlies.

For the second role, it is important to be able to support the realization of customer-oriented business operations by linking customer feedback within the company through telephone and running the "Improvement PDCA Cycle" of our products, services, and administrative procedures.

Diagram: Positioning and role of call center for Japan Post Bank

-- You said that you were the director of the Sapporo Call Center for three years from 2017. What were the problems and challenges you actually experienced there?

Mr. Yamaura
90% of the work of call center directors is about "people." How to hire, grow, and work for a long time. At the call center, the agents who are at the forefront of customer service play main roles. How we create and maintain an "inverted pyramid of support" where agents are supported by assistant supervisors (ASV), and they are together supported by supervisors (SV) is critical in having agents work happily. This leads to call center's Operational Excellence (Competitive Advantage).

When I was the director of the Sapporo Call Center, I had to face lots of challenges. Sapporo is a city where call centers are concentrated so that it is called "Call Center Ginza." We made efforts so agents will "choose our call center," "stay at our call center for a long time," and "work at our call center happily." We had our candidates all visit our call centers. For training we combined classroom lectures with taking actual calls so agents can learn the skills more naturally. For evaluation, we developed a system that rewards people who have worked hard.

Diagram: "Inverted pyramid of support" and call center business overview of supervisors

-- Under such circumstances, you are introducing AI system to the call center this time. What types of effect do you expect from the use of AI?

Mr. Yamaura
When we categorize the skills required for agents, they can be divided into three groups: "consciousness," "skills," and "knowledge." Among these, "consciousness," that is, feelings of valuing customers and hospitality, is a part that only people can do, and AI cannot solve it. Also, in "skills", the part of thinking ability such as logical thinking and imagination necessary for dealing with customers are the areas that require human power. On the other hand, of "skills", input skills (seeing), output skills (writing), and "knowledge" are where AI can show its strength.

Diagram: Skills required for agents and "areas where AI can support"

Mr. Yamaura
Based on this premise, I expect five results from the introduction of this AI. The first is to reduce agents' workload of creating the call log. Agents usually leave the summary of the conversation with the customer, but AI can convert speech-to-text, eliminating the need for agents to create conversation summary. The second is to reduce agents' burden of looking up the relevant knowledge. AI figures out what the call is about and automatically suggest a list of relevant knowledge that the agents will need during the call, saving agents time and efforts to look for the right knowledge. This is especially helpful for new agents. We currently provide pretty extensive new agent training, but we may be able to reduce the training period if we can reduce agents' workload of looking up the right knowledge.

The third is to reduce the false response rate. Since AI automatically suggests the necessary knowledge, agents develop a habit of always referring to the knowledge when responding to the customer, and this is expected to reduce false response. The laws and systems of financial knowledge often change, and agents must update their knowledge. With the automatic suggestion of knowledge by AI, agents can always check the latest knowledge. The fourth is to reduce supervisors' burden of monitoring work. Supervisors monitor the exchanges between customers and agents by listening to the audio for quality check, but if the audio is converted into text, supervisors can accurately grasp the exchanges and provide timely support. And the fifth one is to promote hiring and prevent employee churn. We believe that the introduction of AI will reduce the burden of various tasks and create a workplace environment where people can work comfortably.

Diagram: Overview of AI system introduction to call centers and expected effects

-- Lastly, could you talk about the future plan for Japan Post Bank's call center?

Mr. Yamaura
The AI-based FAQ search engine "AI-FAQ" is a collection of frequently asked questions from customers and answers to them, so we can call it our "organizational knowledge."
We will continue to update it in the future.
Although we cannot do it overnight, applying this organizational knowledge, our ultimate goal is for us to be able to respond to inquiries from customers regarding our products and services with a "chatbot (robot)" 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If the chatbot cannot solve the problem, we will support " human support chat" to enhance the chatbot's presence. If the chatbot cannot handle it, we will deal with it by "telephone" and at a "physical branch."
Our future plan is to transform the conventional call center that only supports telephone into a "contact center (chatbot + human support chat + telephone)".
As a BCP response, we will consider having some agents work from satellite call center (or at-home call center). During COVID-19 (April - May 2020), we reduced the business hours of the call center to the core time (9:00 to 17:00), which had the most number of incoming calls, and we implemented split operations with the minimum number of personnel required. We are taking infection prevention measures through efforts like this, which secures the distance between agent seats. As an infection prevention measure in preparation for the 2nd and 3rd waves of the COVID-19, we have installed acrylic board partitions between the agent seats (front and side), but in order to secure a more appropriate distance between the seats we would like to establish a system that allows some agents to work from satellite call center (or at-home call center) and take calls. I think that making satellite call center (or at-home call center) can lead to work style reforms and ES (Employee Satisfaction) improvements for agents, assistant supervisors, and supervisors. I have great expectation in NTT DATA's ability to propose and execute digital innovation in order to realize the future contact center vision.

Diagram: Future contact center vision (image)