SK Telecom enhances customer support for millions of Koreans with Claude in Amazon Bedrock
SK Telecom, which has maintained the top position in the National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI) for 27 years, is leveraging Claude in Amazon Bedrock to further enhance its renowned customer service operations.
With Claude, SKT achieved:
- The quality rating of LLM responses by human agents in in-call assistance increased by 34%
- The proportion of low-quality responses in the Telco fine-tuned model decreased by 68% compared to the base model
- The response quality in post-call processing is approximately 89% of that of human agents
Meeting the unique demands of Korean customer service
In Korea's fast-paced culture, customer service expectations create unique challenges that extend far beyond typical support requirements. Eric Davis, Head of AI Tech Collaboration Group at SKT, said, "Korea is a very urgent society. If you're one minute late, you're ten minutes late."
SKT, Korea's #1 customer service provider for 27 consecutive years, built their reputation on rapid response times and personalized support through regional call centers that accommodate different dialects and cultural nuances. However, they face mounting pressure to maintain this excellence while bridging critical gaps: their traditional call centers only operate 9-6 Monday through Friday, older customers prefer phone support while younger ones gravitate toward chat.
"If I call in, I can probably talk to a person within minutes versus having to wait on hold for 30 minutes," Davis explains. But maintaining this level of service excellence requires innovative solutions as customer expectations continue to rise.
Why SKT chose Claude
After evaluating multiple LLMs, SKT selected Claude based on three critical requirements essential for their market leadership. Brand safety came first. " For us, brand safety is crucial—anything that tarnishes the brand is just a no-go. Anthropic's huge focus on safety really stood out," said Davis.
Second, Claude's natural communication abilities set it apart from competitors. "Claude is more relatable and creative," said Davis. This warmth and emotional intelligence proved especially valuable in Korean customer service, where cultural nuance and empathy are essential. While other AI models generated formal, detached responses, Claude demonstrated the cultural sensitivity needed for natural conversations across regional dialects.
The final breakthrough emerged through the Amazon Bedrock integration. "We dedicated a lot of effort with Bedrock in terms of getting the performance there," said Davis. "Performance wasn't just about model accuracy—the throughput and latency had to meet our standards.”
Amazon Bedrock enabled the seamless serving of SKT’s custom models while rapidly scaling resources to ensure a stable launch of large-scale LLM services. Additionally, the close collaboration between AWS and Anthropic facilitated swift issue resolution and an efficient deployment process.
By integrating its in-house RAG model with Claude for end-to-end retrieval-augmented generation, SKT created what Davis calls “a killer combination.” This integration significantly enhanced service capabilities, boosting the performance of the Telco LLM from 3.3 to over 4.3. This marks a major achievement in the Korean market, where efficiency and customer service standards are exceptionally high.
How Claude powers intelligent customer support
SKT deployed two key solutions:
In-Call Assist
- Provides agents with real-time document search and answers
- Reduces cognitive burden on overwhelmed agents
- Delivers relevant information automatically
Post-Call Processing
- Automates routine post-call processing, including summarization, topic classification, to-do list generation, and sentiment analysis
- Maintains human oversight of results
- Streamlines workflow while ensuring quality
Transforming agent and customer experiences
Claude-powered solutions transformed agent wellbeing and service quality at SKT. Claude-powered solutions greatly improved agent wellbeing and service quality at SKT. Agent evaluation scores increased significantly from 3.3 to mid-4s, meeting SKT’s rigorous standards for service deployment. "We recognized that our customer service agents are stressed, overwhelmed. We wanted human-in-the-loop technology to make their lives better," said Davis.
SKT's approach, which Davis calls "IA" for intelligence augmentation, emphasizes enhancing rather than replacing human capabilities. "This is not meant to replace jobs—it's meant to augment the experience," said Davis. This philosophy helped SKT maintain their 27-year leadership in customer service while preserving the human touch of their regional support network, where local agents provide service in customers' preferred dialects.
Building the future of human-centered AI support
SKT is working to develop more sophisticated AI solutions that support a human-centered vision. "We're going to build a way more multilingual, way deeper model," said Davis. While automation will increase from today's levels due to workforce shifts, SKT remains committed to using technology to enhance rather than replace the personal connections that distinguish exceptional customer service.
By partnering with Anthropic to pursue this vision, SKT aims to create a blueprint for how companies worldwide can harness AI's power while preserving the irreplaceable human elements of customer care.