Concept: Zimbabwe-based Econet Wireless has unveiled an AI-powered chatbot named Yamurai to improve customer experience. The development of Yamurai as an additional customer support channel manifests Econet’s effort to optimize efficiencies and manage the rise in caller-based customer queries amidst the restricted movement during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Nature of Disruption: Yamurai has been developed to assist and address customer inquiries so that customers can get ready assistance with routine problems such as phone PIN resets, airtime credit or top-up problems, and home-resolved data package purchase queries. Yamurai can also smartly escalate queries for a resolution to the concerned back-office departments in Econet and log tickets to aid in following up active queries till a resolution is achieved. The chatbot can also remember tickets to accumulate relevant data around customer queries for smoother resolutions in the future.

Outlook: Owing to the current pandemic scenario, most people are preferring to work indoors with the least possible physical contact. This has led to a surge in online and phone-in customer inquiries for Econet too. The company believes Yamurai will assist diligently onboard customers onto a digital transformation journey formulated to bring convenience and accelerate service delivery.

This article was originally published in Verdict.co.uk