- Anthony Lawrence
"The elders must go ahead, always the first." Telefónica's instructions, given as soon as the pandemic began, instantly caught on in the company. In this way, those responsible for telephone customer service applied themselves to responding to the requirements of the company's leadership with all the human and technical resources at their disposal.
Broadly speaking, the objective of the telecom is to grant priority treatment to those over 65 on its 1004 lines from March 2020. Since then to date, more than 5.7 million people have agreed to make their queries in a matter of seconds, as elEconomista.es has learned. To achieve this, the telecommunications operator optimized the free service numbers 1004 and 1002 to provide almost immediate and priority advice for its most senior customers.
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In those days of uncertainty and confinement, Telefónica understood that older people, especially those who live alone, need special consideration. " Telephone communication was going to be a fundamental need and it was essential to give them priority in our help, in order to avoid double isolation, which is why this service was designed and implemented in record time," according to operator sources.
Speech recognition
Said and done, since the beginning of April 2020, "when a person over 65 calls Movistar, they are attended to urgently and as a priority, regardless of the service they have and whatever the reason for her call." Then, once the initial filter was passed, the service was left in the hands of people, without machines in the process.
As a novelty in the process, Telefónica uses an advanced voice recognition system capable of distinguishing callers by age. To do this, the software uses artificial intelligence tools capable of distinguishing the tone of voice of older people, which prevents other users from pretending to be older to be attended by a telemarketer with little waiting time.
This Telefónica Spain philosophy of preferentially serving the elderly is applied to both the 1004 and 1002. The first is Movistar's toll-free customer service number, from which users can be clarified, advised or explained any topic related to the service or information about the products, while number 1002, dedicated to incidents. The 1004 has received the vast majority of calls from seniors since its launch. However, if the reason for the call is an incident, then the communication goes directly to a 1002 agent and is routed through a special route for senior customers.