SM Hiplus has launched an AI-powered contact center call bot service that handles customer inquiries 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. [SM Hiplus]
SM Hiplus has launched an AI-powered contact center call bot service that handles customer inquiries 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. [SM Hiplus]

SM Hiplus has launched a 24-hour AI-powered customer service, assigning routine and repetitive inquiries — such as checking unpaid highway toll fees and guiding customers through payment — to an AI system to cut wait times and improve contact center efficiency.

SM Hiplus, a manufacturing and services affiliate of SM Group, announced Wednesday it had introduced an AI call bot service that handles customer inquiries around the clock, every day of the year.

The service is built on Amazon Connect, Amazon Web Services' cloud-based contact center solution. When a customer calls, the AI bot checks whether any highway Hi-Pass toll fees are outstanding and, if needed, walks the customer through the payment process.

Previously, customers who wanted to pay overdue tolls had to reach a human agent during weekday business hours. With the AI call bot, customers can now check unpaid fees and receive payment guidance late at night or on weekends, removing those time constraints.

The move comes as the global cloud industry accelerates efforts to integrate enterprise AI into live business systems. AWS recently established a $1 billion organization that deploys engineers directly to clients to help build industry-specific AI systems, and Amazon Connect has been expanding its AI agent capabilities for customer service.

SM Hiplus completed the migration of its entire IT infrastructure to AWS cloud in October last year. The AI call bot is a follow-on service built on that cloud foundation. The company plans to roll out AI transformation across key operations — including customer service, payments and complaint handling — in stages.

Results from a pilot were encouraging. During a parallel operation run throughout June, the average daily number of customer interactions rose about 250 percent from the previous level, and total call time increased roughly 340 percent. The company attributed both gains to the expansion of available service hours to 24 hours a day.

The payment process has also been simplified. After receiving guidance from the AI bot, customers can pay outstanding fees via mobile web using a credit card or a simple payment service, creating a seamless flow from phone inquiry to completed payment.

The company also expects operating cost savings. SM Hiplus estimates that shifting routine and repetitive guidance tasks to AI could reduce contact center operating costs by more than 15 percent, freeing human agents to focus on complex complaints and cases requiring more detailed explanation.

Service quality monitoring will also be strengthened. Amazon Connect's real-time call analysis function automatically reads customer sentiment and conversation context to assess call content, allowing the company to identify customer pain points more quickly and use the insights to improve its service.

SM Hiplus plans to expand the AI call bot's scope beyond unpaid toll inquiries to cover general customer complaints. The company also intends to use its AI-based customer service system as it broadens its business into a mobility payment platform.

"This new service will help accelerate the AI transformation and the leap toward a mobility payment platform that the company has been working hard to achieve," SM Hiplus CEO Ahn Byung-hyun said, adding that the company would continue to expand the AI call bot's coverage from toll fee collection to general customer complaints.

He added that the company would "focus its efforts on dramatically improving service quality by sharply reducing routine and repetitive inquiries, and on delivering fast, convenient payment support without unnecessary waiting."


kwater@heraldcorp.com