Indonesia's Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison Announces Success with WhatsApp Chatbot

Increasingly, companies are using smart chatbots to help direct customer queries, answer simple questions and – in cases when the issue is too complex for an automated solution – direct customers to the right live agent.

Indonesian telecommunications startup Indosat (News - Alert) Ooredoo Hutchison recently announced the launch of a new WhatsApp chatbot with a goal of reinvigorating interactions with millions of customers. The chatbot, which is powered by technology produced by global cloud communications company Infobip (News - Alert), has transformed the company’s customer service operations, increased customer satisfaction by 40 percent and grown revenues directly attributable to WhatsApp by fivefold in the first year, said Indosat. WhatsApp is Indonesia’s most popular private messaging platform.

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison said the adoption of the chatbot is the culmination of a customer support initiative that began during COVID-19 lockdown. Since calling customer service is not free in Indonesia, many of the company’s subscribers have traditionally searched for help online and inundated its social channels. With COVID lockdowns, subscribers were unable to seek help or make purchases from the company’s retail stores. To better accommodate customers, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison required a new service to respond to changing market conditions, provide continuity of service with stores closed, and answer diverse and numerous customer queries.

Infobip’s chatbot-building platform, Answers, was employed by Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison to develop a new customer service channel over WhatsApp. The chatbot covers over 200 individual use cases, including checking balances and remaining data quotas, downloading bills, and registering for value-added services. By integrating credit cards and e-wallets, the chatbot can also manage online bill payments, account top-ups, and telecom package purchases, enabling the new channel to generate revenue. If a query cannot be solved by the chatbot, customers are transferred to a customer service agent.

“From automating everyday call center transactions to developing more targeted sales campaigns, we needed a solution that was highly versatile and scalable,” said Ritesh Kumar Singh, Chief Commercial Officer for Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison. “Our priority was to ensure we had various paths for an improved, full-service customer experience. Thanks to this solution from Infobip, we can handle 92 percent of customer queries on WhatsApp without any input required from a human agent – even more impressive when you consider we have seen a 168 percent increase in users in the past year.”


Edited by Greg Tavarez