The Future of Telecom Customer Support: Balancing AI Efficiency with Human Empathy

The real story behind AI-led cost-cutting in telecom customer support

In a recent issue of Euromedia magazine (May-June 2025), analyst Teresa Cottam outlined how UK telecom operator Sky aims to decrease its customer support costs by laying off 2,000 staff and replacing them with a combination of AI and outsourced workers. Sky claims this is because customers no longer wish to call customer service agents, preferring to use their app and website instead.

What customers actually want

Cottam challenged this view – pointing out that Sky’s own customer survey had revealed a very different picture. It turns out that nine out of 10 customers said they wanted a choice of channels, not that they didn’t want to call if necessary. As Cottam pointed out, what customers actually want is choice, convenience and less effort.

Rethinking the call center – from crisis to a relationship hub

Nevertheless, operators are undoubtedly under pressure to reduce OPEX, and customer care represents a significant cost.

“The answer is making customer care as efficient as possible, but also seeing it as more than a cost centre,” Cottam told us. “That change is already taking place in many operators, as their call centers transform from crisis centers focused solely on fixing problems to relationship centers concerned with maintaining the overall relationship, including loyalty and revenue generation.”

The power of proactive telecom support

Unlocking this vision of customer care – one that is customer-centric, technologically advanced and which enhances satisfaction and loyalty – relies on really understanding the customer and what they’re experiencing. In the past, operators only had snapshots of real experience, assembled from fragments of data, which weren’t necessarily even current, and triggered in response to a customer-reported problem.

This reactive approach and fragmented picture of experience has transformed thanks to the availability of good quality, real-time data and the ability of AI/ML to spot patterns and link data. The result is a far richer and more up-to-date picture of experience leading to a proactive approach to care.

When human touch matters most

While Subtonomy customers are able to successfully automate up to 75% of their customer inquiries, a proportion of in-bound calls will always need human intervention, either because the problem is new or very complex, or because the customer needs human reassurance.

These interactions with customers become “moments that matter” – critical points in the customer relationship that either reinforce loyalty or destroy it. Handling these moments well relies on agents not only having the right data and the right tools to quickly grasp and solve the customer’s problem on the first attempt, but also having the time to provide empathy and make the customer feel valued.

To really get the most out of call center investments, it’s important to focus not just on speed and throughput but also on the quality and effectiveness of the interaction. A fast interaction may keep the cost of the call down, but it’s a false economy if it doesn’t fully resolve the problem. If the customer has to call again costs are multiplied and frustration rises leading to an impact on CSAT/NPS scores and, potentially, a rise in churn rates.

Transforming Customer Care into a Relationship Hub

• Evolving call centers from reactive "crisis centers" to proactive "relationship centers."

• Leveraging real-time data and advanced AI/ML analytics for effective customer care.

• Using proactive insights to boost efficiency, satisfaction, and loyalty.

• Automating up to 75% of customer inquiries while preserving essential human interaction for complex or sensitive cases.

• Recognizing human interactions as "moments that matter," critical to loyalty and customer experience.

• Equipping agents with comprehensive data insights, empathy, and reassurance to resolve issues effectively.

Subtonomy’s data-driven advantage

This is where Subtonomy comes in. We’re experts in supplying good quality, real-time technical data to fuel the omnichannel support process. Irrespective of whether it’s an agent in a call center, a chatbot, or self-care via an app, everyone benefits from the insights this data provides to fix the problem and understand the customer’s overall experience.

Data not only fuels better experiences, but also glues the organization together – amplifying business and operational performance and putting customer insight at the heart of business operations. Engineering teams can use it to prioritize their workloads and take a customer-centric approach to network buildout and maintenance. And product managers and marketing teams can use it to develop new products that resonate with customer need, and then market these to customers most likely to buy them, at a time when they are most receptive to buy.

Take the next step

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