Voice
Smiley
0:00/1:34
Smiley is Uconnect’s AI agent who began by driving outbound upsells, boosting customer spend by 75% among those she engaged. She has since evolved to handle inbound support, resolving around 50% of customer calls on first contact by answering common queries and routing calls intelligently.
Year :
2025
Industry :
Telco
Client :
UConnect
Project Duration :
5 weeks
Background :
Uconnect is a mobile operator in South Africa that focuses on giving customers more than just connectivity. Alongside airtime and data, customers also enjoy a range of partner benefits and value-added services. This innovative model built strong engagement, but it also created two major challenges: how to upsell effectively to existing customers, and how to manage the high volume of basic support queries that came into the call centre every day.
Our Task :
We launched Smiley, Uconnect’s AI agent, to address both sides of the customer journey. At first, Smiley focused on outbound calling. Her role was to:
Reach out to existing customers in a friendly, conversational way.
Offer them the next best product or plan suited to their needs.
Make upgrades easy by handling the conversation end-to-end.
Challenge :
Upselling at scale while keeping the customer experience consistent had always been difficult for Uconnect’s human agents. Smiley changed that. She:
Increased customer spend dramatically, driving a 75% uplift among those she spoke to.
Made outbound upselling efficient and cost-effective.
Delivered consistent messaging without overloading the existing call centre team.
Evolution :
Once Smiley had proven herself on outbound, she expanded into inbound support. Today, she:
Answers the first line of calls in the call centre IVR.
Resolves common issues such as airtime and data balance checks using USSD codes.
Redirects calls directly to Uconnect’s key partners, OnAir and Unlimited, who handle a large share of customer queries.
Escalates billing and complex issues to human agents when needed.
With this shift, Smiley consistently achieves a 50% first-resolution rate on inbound calls, proving that AI can deliver both sales impact and reliable customer support at scale.
More Agents
Voice
Smiley
0:00/1:34
Smiley is Uconnect’s AI agent who began by driving outbound upsells, boosting customer spend by 75% among those she engaged. She has since evolved to handle inbound support, resolving around 50% of customer calls on first contact by answering common queries and routing calls intelligently.
Year :
2025
Industry :
Telco
Client :
UConnect
Project Duration :
5 weeks
Background :
Uconnect is a mobile operator in South Africa that focuses on giving customers more than just connectivity. Alongside airtime and data, customers also enjoy a range of partner benefits and value-added services. This innovative model built strong engagement, but it also created two major challenges: how to upsell effectively to existing customers, and how to manage the high volume of basic support queries that came into the call centre every day.
Our Task :
We launched Smiley, Uconnect’s AI agent, to address both sides of the customer journey. At first, Smiley focused on outbound calling. Her role was to:
Reach out to existing customers in a friendly, conversational way.
Offer them the next best product or plan suited to their needs.
Make upgrades easy by handling the conversation end-to-end.
Challenge :
Upselling at scale while keeping the customer experience consistent had always been difficult for Uconnect’s human agents. Smiley changed that. She:
Increased customer spend dramatically, driving a 75% uplift among those she spoke to.
Made outbound upselling efficient and cost-effective.
Delivered consistent messaging without overloading the existing call centre team.
Evolution :
Once Smiley had proven herself on outbound, she expanded into inbound support. Today, she:
Answers the first line of calls in the call centre IVR.
Resolves common issues such as airtime and data balance checks using USSD codes.
Redirects calls directly to Uconnect’s key partners, OnAir and Unlimited, who handle a large share of customer queries.
Escalates billing and complex issues to human agents when needed.
With this shift, Smiley consistently achieves a 50% first-resolution rate on inbound calls, proving that AI can deliver both sales impact and reliable customer support at scale.
More Agents
Voice
Smiley
0:00/1:34
Smiley is Uconnect’s AI agent who began by driving outbound upsells, boosting customer spend by 75% among those she engaged. She has since evolved to handle inbound support, resolving around 50% of customer calls on first contact by answering common queries and routing calls intelligently.
Year :
2025
Industry :
Telco
Client :
UConnect
Project Duration :
5 weeks
Background :
Uconnect is a mobile operator in South Africa that focuses on giving customers more than just connectivity. Alongside airtime and data, customers also enjoy a range of partner benefits and value-added services. This innovative model built strong engagement, but it also created two major challenges: how to upsell effectively to existing customers, and how to manage the high volume of basic support queries that came into the call centre every day.
Our Task :
We launched Smiley, Uconnect’s AI agent, to address both sides of the customer journey. At first, Smiley focused on outbound calling. Her role was to:
Reach out to existing customers in a friendly, conversational way.
Offer them the next best product or plan suited to their needs.
Make upgrades easy by handling the conversation end-to-end.
Challenge :
Upselling at scale while keeping the customer experience consistent had always been difficult for Uconnect’s human agents. Smiley changed that. She:
Increased customer spend dramatically, driving a 75% uplift among those she spoke to.
Made outbound upselling efficient and cost-effective.
Delivered consistent messaging without overloading the existing call centre team.
Evolution :
Once Smiley had proven herself on outbound, she expanded into inbound support. Today, she:
Answers the first line of calls in the call centre IVR.
Resolves common issues such as airtime and data balance checks using USSD codes.
Redirects calls directly to Uconnect’s key partners, OnAir and Unlimited, who handle a large share of customer queries.
Escalates billing and complex issues to human agents when needed.
With this shift, Smiley consistently achieves a 50% first-resolution rate on inbound calls, proving that AI can deliver both sales impact and reliable customer support at scale.