Self-service in four languages for South Africa’s broadcasting giant

We built an intelligent WhatsApp assistant that understands DStv’s users to provide a simple, centralised and scalable self-service solution that makes ticket queues a thing of the past. The best part? It's available in four of SA's 11 spoken languages.

Award winning work

Smarties Global

Silver

for

Customer Experience

2023

The New Generation

Bronze

for

Best Use of Technical Innovation

2023

The New Generation

Bronze

for

Best Use of AI in Marketing Campaign

2023

Smarties SA

Gold

for

Customer Experience

2022

Smarties SA

Bronze

for

Chat Apps

2022

Challenge

With a growing user base of over 9 million South Africans, DStv needed a scalable solution that resolved more customer queries in less time.

Solution

Companies like DStv usually give their customers self-service options online or via USSD. But even those require some form of standing up, logging in or worse – waiting. So DStv briefed us to take their self-service offering to the next level – WhatsApp. Using our AI-powered conversational platform Helm Engine™, we built an Intelligent Assistant that can understand and respond to users on the world’s most widely-used messaging app.

First, we built an assisted service platform for agents

Before we could get going on the big one, we needed to make sure the call centre agents were properly enabled to solve customer queries. So we built an assisted service platform that intelligently integrates with various back-end systems to deliver a User Interface that helps agents solve queries in less time. But the real magic would ultimately happen in the palm of the end user’s hand.

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Radically simplified self-service

DStv wanted to give their customers a top-tier self-service option to go with its top-tier service offering. So they approached us to help them radically simplify their self-service game. Launched in 2019, the WhatsApp Intelligent Assistant allows customers to perform everyday functions on SA’s most popular social app. The intelligent assistant can clear decoder errors, manage accounts, and solve problems that previously required a phone call or physical presence in-store.

"

It’s amazing to see more and more of our customers using DStv Assist as their preferred channel. What we have achieved here builds on DStv’s already-strong self-service offering, and this is only the beginning ."

Saret Marais

Executive Head of Group Digital Enablement

Always Learning through NLU

By harnessing the NLU capabilities of Helm Helm Engine™, DStv Assist can understand what users are saying and even proactively learn their behaviours, like when they tend to change packages and when they’re going on holiday.

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Real data, real time

The vision and strategy were based on the most common customer queries. DStv Self-Service can now upgrade and pay accounts, check balances, manage holiday viewing, rent BoxOffice movies and check the TV guide. Using DStv’s API as a single source of truth, Helm Engine™ is a hub of centralised intelligence. With all that data waiting to be used, the key it to understand what the user is saying and respond in seconds.