SK Telecom ranked No. 1 in the mobile phone category of the Korea Customer Satisfaction Index (KCSI) survey hosted by Korea Management Association Consulting.

SKT said on Sept. 30 it completed a grand slam by ranking No. 1 in KCSI after topping the National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI) in April and the Korea Service Quality Index (KS-SQI) in July.

KCSI had kept SKT at No. 1 for 27 consecutive years through 2024, but the company lost the top spot last year in the wake of a cyber breach incident. In this year’s survey, customer satisfaction in key categories including long-term customer benefits, call and data quality, and plan satisfaction rose from a year earlier.

SKT made restoring customer trust a key management task after the cyber breach incident and expanded field-focused customer experience (CX) improvement activities. It carried out a total of 730 field CX activities this year, including a “visiting service” program for about 35,000 elderly customers in 87 cities and counties nationwide.

On its anniversary, it ran a program called “the day we stand before customers again.” SKT CEO Jae-heon Jung (정재헌), all executives and the Customer Trust Committee visited customer centers and distribution channels, airport roaming centers and welfare facilities for people with disabilities to hear customer feedback. It also met long-term customers who have used SKT for more than 40 years to hear suggestions for service improvements.

It also expanded communication to reflect customer feedback in product and service planning. SKT operates a Customer Trust Committee made up of 100 customer advisers and outside experts. It recently held “2026 Insight Day” to discuss indicators for measuring corporate trust and improvement tasks.

It is also running the “CX Campus” project to reflect feedback from younger customers such as university students in services. Based on students’ ideas, it planned coffee and dessert-focused T Membership benefits timed to exam periods and marketing related to running.

It is also using AI to improve customer experience. It analyses the voice of the customer (VOC) received by customer centers with AI to use for product and service improvements, and it is also reviewing messages sent to customers using an AI-based process.

It also applied AI to network operations. At events that draw large crowds such as fireworks festivals or cherry blossom festivals, it uses its AI operations system “A-One” to forecast communications demand and apply it to base station deployment and network operations.

SKT CEO Jung said, "This No. 1 ranking in KCSI is a customer assessment of efforts to strengthen customer trust and a call to treat customers with higher standards. We will create changes customers can feel in daily life through a customer-first principle and advancing customer experience through AI."