Sky AR and AI Tech

Sky considers the use of augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) in answering customers’ queries and solving broadband issues.

19:40 23 July 2018

Sky’s team in Leeds, who is responsible for the MySky app and the development of bots and AI, is looking at improving customer service with augmented reality and artificial intelligence. The firm has partnered with IBM Watson and launched a concierge bot with asynchronous messaging to manage customer queries within the MySky app, Facebook messenger and SMS last year.

 

Stephen van Rooyen, Sky's CEO UK and Ireland, said: “In order to give customers a brilliant, convenient and quick service, one of the things we have done is start to build bots in to some of our customer contact channels. If you are a customer and you contact us through the My Sky app, Facebook Messenger or SMS you will be greeted by a concierge bot who will understand what your problem is and take you through to the right team to solve the query.

 

“We’ve trained the bot to understand the different problems a customer might have and all the different ways customers can express the problems they’ve got via messaging.

 

“The clever bit is something called Natural Language Processing. So a customer might say ‘I want to pay some money off my account’, and someone else might say ‘I want to settle my bill’ – different words but meaning the same thing. The bot learns over time after hundreds and thousands of conversations."

 

The Leeds team is also involved in the launch of Sky Q and Sky Mobile as well as leads on the firm’s app development, including the app that customers can use to access their bills and the firm’s range of products and services.