Aiming to make the AI an official service by the end of FY2018, transcosmos launches a trial campaign for clients that wish to leverage machine learning ahead of time

transcosmos inc. (Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan; President and COO: Masataka Okuda; TSE First Section: 9715; transcosmos) and Communication Science Lab (Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan; Director: Kentaro Ogata), an AI laboratory, have co-developed an AI which auto-judges customer service quality at contact centers. It is an outcome of their machine learning project which started as one of their initiatives to develop next-gen communication centers. After conducting a successful proof-of-concept and gained confidence in applying the AI to core operations of contact centers, transcosmos now aims to make the AI its official service and offer the service in full-scale by the end of FY2018. Ahead of the service release, transcosmos will run a trial campaign for clients that wish to try out machine learning as first movers. 

■ Developed an AI which judges “massive customer service data at speed with human accuracy” 

transcosmos believes customer service quality at contact centers consists of 3 elements; (1) customer service manners (2) information provided to customers, the core of customer service operations, and (3) plus something extra, in another word, an additional value. The scope of the conducted proof-of-concept was (1) customer service manners.

By developing massive high-quality learning data based on transcosmos’s long-standing know-how of contact center operations and leveraging the leading-edge technological expertise that Communication Science Lab owns, transcosmos and Communication Science Lab have successfully developed an AI which auto-judges the quality of “massive customer services data at speed with human accuracy”. With this AI, businesses can detect inappropriate customer services with more than twice the accuracy of a voice recognition system and other features that detect problematic services by using pre-determined keywords.

■  Driving effort to make the AI an official service by the end of FY2018 in order to offer solutions for contact centers to tackle their real challenges

Based on the accomplishment with this proof-of-concept, transcosmos and Communication Science Lab are working on developing an AI which can judge the second element of customer service quality, (2) information provided to customers, a long-standing challenge for contact centers. Contact centers must always provide accurate information about guarantee clauses and important notices in order to prevent trouble. As such, it is essential to assign managers that are well-versed in operations to check call transcription and supervise contact center agents in order to prevent any trouble recurrences. Yet, it is impractical and requires tremendous man-hours to check all call transcriptions with a limited number of managers and so, it is hard to maintain and manage service quality systematically. transcosmos will work on applying AI to these core operations of call centers ahead of others, aiming to release and offer the service in full-scale by the end of FY2018. 

■ Lunches a trial campaign for clients that wish to leverage machine learning ahead of official service release 

transcosmos will run a trial campaign ahead of the official service release for clients that wish to “let AI manage quality check and make the managers focus on providing feedback to agents” and “develop agents efficiently by incorporating a scheme which enables the operation of the PDCA cycle without fail”. Until July 2018, transcosmos will offer this trial campaign at a special campaign price only to a limited 10 existing clients that transcosmos already offers its operations services. 

transcosmos’s original goal has been to deliver highly valuable services by uniting people with technology through “scheme”. transcosmos continues to promote mutually beneficial relationships between people and cutting-edge technologies that include AI and ML. 

* transcosmos is a trademark or registered trademark of transcosmos inc. in Japan and other countries. * Other company names and product or service names used here are trademarks or registered trademarks of respective companies. 

■ About Communication Science Lab 

In September 2017, transcosmos established “Communication Science Lab”, a laboratory specifically for applying science to ever-digitalizing business-to-consumer communication by utilizing cutting-edge technologies such as AI and robotics as well as data science like machine learning and natural language processing. Communication Science Lab will solve information asymmetry problem between consumers and businesses by accumulating information assets including a corpus-based approach, a rule-based approach and algorithms that are essential in making next gen-communication in the digital age. Ultimately, Communication Science Lab aims at becoming the largest “communication data bank” in Asia. 

■ About transcosmos inc. 

transcosmos launched its operations in 1966. Since then, we have combined superior “people” with up-to-date “technology” to enhance the competitive strength of our clients by providing them with superior and valuable services. transcosmos currently offers services that support clients’ business processes focusing on both sales expansion and cost reduction through our 172 locations across 31 countries with a focus on Asia, while continuously pursuing Operational Excellence. Furthermore, following the expansion of e-commerce market on the global scale, transcosmos provides a comprehensive One-Stop Global E-Commerce Services to deliver our clients' excellent products and services to consumers in 49 countries around the globe. transcosmos aims to be the “Global Digital Transformation Partner” of our clients, supporting the clients’ transformation by leveraging digital technology, responding to the ever-changing business environment.