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Published on March 1, 2008

AIS has capitalised on Internet technology to enhance the service, vice president for customer service Vilasinee Phudtikarun said yesterday.

Customers logging in at its existing www.ais.co.th can now chat via text, talk and see the staff face-to-face at the same time. Earlier customers could only chat online with the staff.

Vilasinee said one benefit of the channel is the call centre staff can make visual demonstrations to customers who need help in setting up certain functions on their phones.

Moreover, AIS is providing the call-centre service with four new languages - Chinese, Japanese, Korean and French - besides the existing English and Thai.

The company's call centre picks up a total of 3 million calls per month, of which 1 per cent are from foreign customers in Thailand, 30 per cent from provincial customers and the remainder from Bangkok.

AIS has set a budget of Bt200 million this year to further develop the call centre. The company has spent over Bt3 billion on call-centre development over the past decade.

In a separate matter, AIS chief executive Vikrom Sriprataks said that AIS is targeting high revenue growth this year, given that the competition has shifted to a service focus from a price war. However, he declined to specify the revenue target.

Vikrom added that non-voice services would be one key revenue growth engine this year and is expected to account for 20 per cent of total revenue, up from around 11 per cent last year.

"We've seen the trend of rising demand for data services in the market," he said.

Last year AIS non-voice revenues grew 16.9 per cent on a yearly basis to Bt8.62 billion, representing 11 per cent of the total service revenue of Bt78.28 billion.

Vikrom added that consumer-data consumption will explode once cellular operators can offer 3G cellular broadband network service, which will enable consumers to access content via their phones with blazing speed.

AIS is in talks with its concession owner TOT on the possibility to test the 3G service on the state agency's 1900 MHz spectrum.

The National Telecommun-ications Commission has yet to issue licences to telecom operators to operate the 3G broadband spectrums.

Sirivish Toomgum

The Nation