Deutsche Telekom partners with McKinsey to scale hyper-personalized agent training with gen AI
Deutsche Telekom · Germany
Deutsche Telekom partnered with McKinsey to build a generative-AI-powered learning and coaching engine to upskill 8,000 human agents in the field and call centers. The team spent six weeks diagnosing agent needs with millions of data points, then four months building and refining the MVP, embedding prompts into agent workflows (e.g. a training video is triggered if an agent struggles with eSIM activation). The likelihood of customers recommending the company increased by 14%.
Overview
Deutsche Telekom partnered with McKinsey to build a generative-AI-powered learning and coaching engine to upskill 8,000 human agents in the field and call centers. The team spent six weeks diagnosing agent needs with millions of data points, then four months building and refining the MVP, embedding prompts into agent workflows (e.g. a training video is triggered if an agent struggles with eSIM activation). The likelihood of customers recommending the company increased by 14%.
The challenge
Deutsche Telekom, which serves 23.5 million private customers, 2.4 million SMEs and 300,000 organizations across Germany with more than 15,000 call center agents and 5,500 field service agents, found that traditional learning programs were not built to meet the individual needs of employees, causing too much variation in performance across service agents and a ripple effect on customer experience, operational efficiency and employee satisfaction.
The solution
Deutsche Telekom partnered with McKinsey and QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, applying QuantumBlack's proprietary frontline AI product to build a digital capability model. The team began with a six-week diagnostic phase combining millions of pieces of call data, field service data points, customer feedback and KPIs to identify skill gaps, followed by a four-month MVP phase to build, test and refine the AI-powered learning and coaching engine. The engine was integrated into agents' existing workflows through personal dashboards ("cockpits") that trigger tailored training — for example a training video if an agent struggles with eSIM activation — with supervisors reviewing and validating training recommendations before they reach employees.
Reported business value
Deutsche Telekom's digital-based learning and coaching engine drove a 14-point increase in customers' likelihood to recommend the company (NPS), alongside improved first-time resolution rates year over year, after training an initial round of agents across its field and call-center service lines.
Sources
Open any source and check the claim yourself — that is the point of the register.
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