VIEWPOINT
At the Digital Transformation World (DTW) 2024 event by TM Forum, Huawei SmartCare has won two awards: the “Data-to-NPS: Boosting NPS using Decision Intelligence” project, jointly submitted by Huawei and leading global operators, won with the Catalyst “Attendees’ Choice” Award. Meanwhile, the “AI for customer perception network optimization” project received the “Rising Star” Award. The event was held in Copenhagen, Denmark, from June 18-20 and witnessed participation from telecom operators and solutions providers across the world.
Ding Chengyi, President of Network Performance & Converged Data Operations Domain, Huawei, said at the TM Forum DTW24 conference, “Huawei will continue to evolve around the vision of ‘Building the Ultimate Experience, Exciting the Data Value’, leveraging advanced TM Forum ODA (Open Data Architecture) and converged data operations capabilities to facilitate operators’ business success.”
Reshaping NPS Management: Key to Sustained Operator Growth
According to GSMA, the global Unique MBB user penetration rate has already reached 69% in 2023 and is expected to only reach 74% by 2030, with a CAGR of less than 1.7% over the next five years. This number will be even smaller in developed areas or dense urban areas. Almost all the operators face increasing competition, making managing existing customers the key to further business growth, and NPS is the key metric for managing existing customers. However, there are some long-standing issues that make it difficult to improve NPS.
In response to these challenges, Huawei, alongside top global operators, have incubated the Data-to-NPS solution, a satisfaction/NPS management approach driven by data and AI. Leveraging Huawei GTS’s investments in foundational technologies such as spatio-temporal digital twin, AI, SRCON (Simulated Reality of Communication Networks), and large models, the Data-to-NPS solution digitizes the intangible satisfaction/NPS, enabling virtual-to-real mapping, prediction, and optimization. This breakthrough approach surpasses traditional satisfaction/NPS management limitations, shifting from reactive responses to proactive prediction and optimization.
Multiple industry-leading operators and communication technology service providers have participated in this project, including Telkomsel, China Mobile (Guangxi, Zhejiang, Shaanxi), Globe, AIS, STC, Huawei, Eastcom Software, and Sudo Technology.
The high acclaim the Data-to-NPS project received at the TM Forum underscores the global consensus among operators on leveraging data and AI-driven satisfaction/NPS management. Notably, this paradigm has already garnered initial commercial validation.
For instance, China Mobile (Guangxi, Shaanxi) has utilized Huawei’s proprietary Smart Decision solution to identify potential dissatisfied customers across multiple dimensions, enhancing product satisfaction and marketing success rates. In China Mobile (Zhejiang) and Indonesia, Huawei SmartCare’s solution for identifying potential detractors precisely pinpoints network issues, facilitating targeted network optimization and ultimately reducing the proportion of potential detractors. In Thailand, AI modeling and prediction of complaint behavior have aided customer service in proactive early care for potential complainants, and it is estimated that tens of millions of dollars can be saved for carriers each year.
AI-Enabled Experience-Driven Network Optimization: A New Paradigm for Autonomous Networks
As the world’s largest operator, China Mobile operates the largest mobile network globally, with over 5 million 4G/5G base stations and more than 15 million cells. The wireless network environment is complex, with numerous processes across planning, construction, maintenance, optimization, and marketing, particularly in terms of customer experience-oriented network operation and maintenance optimization loops.
China Mobile (Beijing) faces a continuously growing and increasingly complex network with diversifying customer demands. Traditional maintenance modes relying on manual efforts and system assistance suffer from low analysis efficiency and accuracy, unable to meet network quality and customer perception requirements. Especially with 5G network evolution, internal perception issue assessment becomes challenging, accompanied by the need to reduce complaints, swiftly resolve user complaints, and ensure differentiated user experience, necessitating new intelligent solutions.
China Mobile (Beijing) and Huawei have joined forces to create an “AI-based collaborative optimization system for customer perception”. This project fully leverages AI technology, deeply integrates 5G, SmartCare, CEI+, intelligent boards, and other technologies with communication networks. It focuses on transitioning wireless network optimization from “performance-centric” to “perception-centric,” from “network-focused” to “customer and business-focused,” and from “isolated site issue handling” to “holistic solutions for key areas, scenarios, and customers.”
The successful implementation of this project has established a proactive management system for user perception, driving the digitization of network optimization workflows. It identifies potential complaint issues, enhancing problem-solving efficiency, with a 30% reduction in monthly task assignments and a 25% decrease in average monthly complaints in pilot regions.
