NTT DOCOMO reinvent its service experiences with AI-powered omnichannel innovation

Evolving the contact center into a hub of CX innovation 

NTT DOCOMO, Inc. operates consumer communications, financial settlement and smart life businesses such as content services for corporations. Reflecting these business areas, the company prioritizes “connecting” as part of its group vision of “bridging worlds with technology and integrity to inspire value creation and fill the world with happiness.” Core to this, NTT DOCOMO prioritizes its contact centers as the front line of directly connecting customers and companies. 

The company employs about 10,000 agents at more than 150 contact center locations to address a range of needs, from smartphone operation guidance to repair to corporate support. The company receives customer feedback across a diverse set of channels, including voice, webchat, the LINE messaging app, email and bots.  

“We advocate for customer-centric business operations, and we use AI and cloud technologies to provide personalized service to each and every customer,” said Morimichi Saiki, Director, Platform Strategy & Infrastructure, at NTT DOCOMO. “As our smart life business grows, our contact center is evolving from a front line for connecting with customers to a place that not only handles inquiries but also creates customer experiences.” 

Migrating to the cloud provides resilience to change 

NTT Docomo migrated its on-premises contact center system to the Genesys Cloud platform because of an increased need for remote work, the need to respond to work style reforms and to implement business continuity plan (BCP) measures to prepare for unforeseen circumstances. An essential part of the BCP and to ensure employee safety, NTT DOCOMO needed the ability to ensure continued service across regions, regardless of location or device. 

“With our conventional on-premises system, it was difficult to respond flexibly to sudden environmental changes, so we decided to migrate to the cloud,” said Saiki. “Areas where system modifications previously took time and cost money can now be built with low-code UIs, enabling field-led improvements.” 

By implementing Genesys Cloud, NTT DOCOMO evolved its operational foundation.  The company integrated its CRM system and other internal business systems into Genesys Cloud. This allows for faster response to improvement requests from the field, as well as more agility in adding new functionalities. Previously, for example, when customers visited a local NTT DOCOMO shop after a phone call or chat, the company could only check the agent’s notes. However, with omnichannel integration, more detailed logs can now be linked. 

“As a result, we expect to be able to provide a truly seamless customer experience,” added Saiki. 

Another way the company simplifies customer journeys is by using IVR routing and directly integrating voice information with its voicebots. Then, if a voicebot can’t provide the needed assistance to customers, the system uses IVR voice data to streamline the connection to agents.  

“This is another major advantage of Genesys Cloud,” said Daiki Okazono, Infrastructure Engineer at NTT DOCOMO. 

Improving CX by reducing the burden on agents  

Improving experiences extends to NTT DOCOMO employees. The company aims to reduce their cognitive load and manual tasks, which could improve both engagement and productivity. 

Traditionally, contact center interaction records required agents to manually summarize key points and review history, which was time-consuming after-call work (ACW). This resulted in a significant burden for handovers, verifying interaction details and checking for misinformation.  

“By integrating Genesys Cloud with voice-to-text and summarization functions, we anticipate reducing agents’ ACW by approximately 80%, improving NPS by 10% and reducing costs by 48%,” said Saiki. 

Additionally, customizing the talk script, a standard feature of Genesys Cloud, has significantly improved ease of response. Previously, agents had to memorize specific scripts for various customer interactions. Now, because screen pops provide real-time guidance on what agents should say, they feel that it has become significantly easier to provide clear and accurate responses. 

“Even agents who are still relatively new to the field can now respond to customers without much anxiety, and the contract rate for proposed products has increased by 9%,” said Kouki Yamamoto, Infrastructure Engineer at NTT DOCOMO. “In addition, since we can now send follow-up SMS messages from the same screen, which has also helped to streamline our work.”  

Expanding the use of AI to innovate customer interactions across channels 

NTT DOCOMO plans to further advance its use of AI to enhance both the agent and customer experience.  

“We plan to test Agent Copilot,” said  Okazono. “If it can provide answers to customers in real time based on the content of the call, we believe that the summarization and wrap-up code prediction will not only improve the efficiency of operations but also the accuracy.”  

The company is considering AI in Voice of the Customer (VoC) analysis. “We are interested in Genesys Cloud’s topic detection and sentiment analysis, such as what the customer’s emotions were when we responded using a certain script,” said Yamamoto. 

But the planned transformation isn’t limited to the contact center. NTT DOCOMO intends to provide even more connected, personalized journeys across in-person, content center and self-service channels. 

“Including the collaboration between stores and contact centers, we aim to provide a customer experience that is better than face-to-face — and tailored to each individual customer,” said Saiki. “In the future, we will integrate functions with Genesys Cloud and evolve to provide a more seamless and innovative CX.” 

To learn more about the solutions featured in this case study, visit www.genesys.com.