One question is always on the mind of Mr Wayne Johnson: “How do we make life easier for our customers?”

He is the head of customer service and customer experience at MyRepublic. While there are no straight answers to the question, his team of six is constantly trying to find innovative ways to create a seamless experience and meet the needs of their customers.

MyRepublic’s in-app artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot was rolled out in March this year as a result. This chatbot stands out with its ability to pick up emotions.

“The chatbot looks for language that sounds like frustration, and flags that out to our customer service team,” adds Mr Johnson. Such customers may then be prioritised for customer agents to assist them.

To give it an even stronger human touch, MyRepublic’s AI chatbot is able to simulate a natural conversation with customers, unlike typical chatbots that only identify keywords to offer solutions or provide templated responses. It then searches through the company’s database to find a solution.

These key features of the AI chatbot were created based on customer feedback. By sharing their feedback and frustrations through surveys, it helped the customer service and customer experience team at MyRepublic to identify areas for improvement and work on solutions to keep their customers satisfied.

“If we are not listening to the feedback from our customers and where their frustration points are, we will never improve,” says Mr Johnson. It was this shared dedication to make the customers’ lives easier that paved the way for delivering better customer service for the company.

Empowering customer self-service

User feedback led MyRepublic to revamp its app in late 2022, removing the “slow” and “clunky” elements for a “cleaner and cooler” look, says Mr Johnson.

The company also created over 2,500 automated tasks to give them the power to resolve their own issues.

A few years back, if a customer had a problem with the home broadband and had to turn to the helpline for assistance, this could have meant getting put on hold for 30 minutes before an agent is available to take the call. Today, thanks to the AI chatbot, the matter can get resolved in an average of 30 seconds through the MyRepublic app.

Once an issue is flagged to the AI chatbot, it goes through the customer’s account to detect abnormalities and guides the customer towards rectifying the issue. This saves time and eliminates any potential frustration of having to wait on the line.

While people typically dislike automated responses, the in-app AI chatbot rolled out by MyRepublic has been well-received by customers so far. 

As of July 2024, 82 per cent of general inquiries have been resolved satisfactorily by its AI chatbot, including those related to billing and transactions.

The more complex cases were handed over to customer service agents. But even then, the work of MyRepublic’s AI chatbot is not done – it is still running in the background, tracking the conversation between the agent and the customer, and giving the agent suggestions on how to deal with the inquiry or issue by combing through its internal database.

“What is important to us is finding that right mix of when a customer needs to speak to an agent and when they can self-help,” shares Mr Johnson. This goes back to his main goal of making the lives of the customers easier.

To meet these needs, MyRepublic’s AI chatbot is continuously being improved by real-life use and reviewed by the customer service and experience team. This investment in customer experience is one of the reasons MyRepublic was recognised in the Singapore’s Best Customer Service 2024/2025 list, as surveyed by Statista and The Straits Times.

Going the extra mile

Despite Mr Johnson’s belief that AI will lead the way to better customer services, he believes that ultimately, it is the human touch that will truly make an impact.

He gave the example of one MyRepublic customer who found himself in a pickle when he was overseas with a faulty SIM card. He could not even do simple tasks like sending out WhatsApp messages. A replacement SIM card could not be sent to him as they are mailed only to local addresses.

However, this customer was surprised when a staff member travelling to the customer’s location hand-delivered a new SIM card to him.

“The customer was so happy that he reached out to the MyRepublic legal team to sing the praises of the staff member,” says Mr Johnson. 

“Although it bypasses our day-to-day processes, we are happy to go the extra mile for the sake of keeping the customer satisfied.”

Seeing the positive reviews and happy faces of customers motivates Mr Johnson to work towards even bigger changes for the company. New projects in the pipeline include having the AI bot identify an issue even before the customer is aware of it and solve it in the backend. Another potential development would be avatar-driven interactions: AI bots with human-sounding voices that can converse with customers in a phone call. 

“The goal for us is that as long as every change is making it easier for the customer, then we are doing the right thing,” he adds.