SK Telecom said on Sept. 15 it was selected as the top company for a fifth consecutive year in the Korean Standards Association-run 2026 Call Center Quality Index (KS-CQI) survey.

KS-CQI is a system that selects top companies by evaluating call center service quality each year. It assesses 39 items across seven components, including reliability, friendliness, proactiveness, ease of access, physical environment, core services and additional services, through customer satisfaction surveys and call monitoring.

The SKT customer center operates an AI solution that monitors customer satisfaction and consultation content based on feedback from counsellors. SK said it applied AI across the entire consultation process and pushed measures such as strengthening counsellor capabilities and using simpler telecommunications terms. It said the efforts earned high ratings for reliability, friendliness and core services.

Through the solution, counsellors can analyse customer satisfaction collected during consultations and receive tailored coaching to review their own consultation approaches. For cases of customer dissatisfaction, the system also analyses factors such as speaking speed and intonation to identify areas needing an appropriate response and improvement.

The company is also expanding automation of consultation tasks using AI. AI handles simple, repetitive work such as taking and confirming consultation reservations, responding to customers and cancelling orders, while counsellors focus on communication and empathy with customers. SK said it also runs regular training to shift counsellors’ roles toward emotional care and communication.

It also provides 24-hour consultation services through AI chatbots and callbots. The company said AI classifies consultation types and automatically recommends answers to reduce waiting times and improve consultation accuracy and operational efficiency. It also uses AI to improve telecommunications terms for communication with customers. It analyses frequently used expressions during consultations and trains counsellors to replace difficult terms with simpler words.

Hye-yeon Lee (이혜연), head of SKT’s Customer Value Innovation Office, said, "A customer center must evolve beyond responding to customer inquiries into a core organisation that designs the customer experience." She said, "We will provide services customers can trust more by combining sophisticated AI technology with counsellors’ sincere empathy capabilities."