JapanTelecom / digital servicesTransform · $200K
NTT Docomo

After the shops close — an agentic service layer for Docomo's 90-million-line, d POINT-powered base

Docomo is closing physical shops and pushing service to My docomo and phone lines exactly as price competition and past network-quality complaints make retention harder; an agentic frontline that resolves billing, plan and d POINT questions transactionally — co-engineered alongside NTT's own tsuzumi LLM rather than against it — turns the group's AI strategy into measurable frontline economics.

Entry use case
Churn-risk retention and win-back outreach
Expected outcome
Contact 100% of at-risk and port-out-signal subscribers with policy-bounded retention conversations, measured on save rate against the dialer baseline.
Recommended next step
Workshop with consumer CS and marketing leadership: quantify the uncontacted at-risk base and dialer save economics, then scope a retention pilot co-designed with NTT group AI stakeholders.
What we understand

NTT Docomo's operating reality

NTT Docomo is Japan's largest mobile carrier by subscribers, with the d POINT membership base among Japan's largest loyalty programs and d Payment among its top wallets.

Public fact

Docomo has been reducing the Docomo Shop physical network for years, shifting service load to My docomo, chat and phone — while an older subscriber segment still expects patient keigo voice service.

Public fact

Network-quality complaints in dense urban areas in 2023-24 were publicly acknowledged and drove churn pressure and remediation capex.

Public fact

Parent NTT developed the tsuzumi lightweight Japanese LLM, commercially launched in 2024 — group policy will favor NTT AI assets somewhere in any conversational stack.

Public fact

ahamo's online-only support model concentrates a digital-native segment whose entire service experience is chat — a natural first surface for full automation.

Reasoned inference

Retention offers today are likely dialer- and shop-led with capacity limits, leaving most at-risk subscribers uncontacted before port-out.

Seller hypothesis — validate

Validate with the account team before outreach: Where tsuzumi and NTT DATA assets are mandated in the conversational stack — and where gaps are acknowledged · Current retention-desk and dialer save rates, capacity and offer-matrix governance · Docomo Shop reduction roadmap and the volume actually shifting to remote channels · Incumbent contact-center vendors and any group BPO arrangements

Build vs buy

Why we have a right to win here

Co-build target

Strong internal engineering — sell infrastructure, models, governance, or selected capabilities

Evidence: NTT group owns its own LLM (tsuzumi) and a massive engineering arm in NTT DATA, so a pure external platform sale is implausible; but tsuzumi is a lightweight model aimed at efficiency, not a full agentic voice frontline — the winning posture is co-building: NTT models and infrastructure where mandated, Gemini-class speech and the orchestration/communications layer where quality gaps are conceded.

Why they won't build the full stack: Even with group engineering, a production agentic frontline — telephony, barge-in voice, offer-matrix governance, evaluation at 100% coverage — is a multi-year build Docomo's competitive position cannot wait for; a co-build delivers measurable retention economics now while respecting group AI strategy.

What management is signalling

NTT publicly launched the tsuzumi LLM commercially in 2024 and has made AI and data centers central to group strategy in investor materials.

Reported factNTT group investor communications · 2024-2025

GTM implication: Do not pitch against the group model — architect the proposal so tsuzumi has a declared place, and sell the agent platform, voice quality and communications layer around it.

Docomo's consumer ARPU remains under pressure from price competition and discount brands, keeping retention economics and cost-to-serve on the management agenda.

Inferencerecent investor communications (validate) · 2025-2026

GTM implication: Lead with retention save-rate economics, the metric that most directly defends consumer revenue.

Docomo publicly committed remediation capex to network-quality complaints in dense urban areas during 2023-24.

Reported factpublic statements and results briefings · 2024

GTM implication: Churn pressure from the quality episode makes proactive, well-governed retention outreach an easier internal sell now than in a stable year.

What already exists (don't pitch this)
  • My docomo app and web self-service at national scale
  • d POINT / d Payment ecosystem with tens of millions of members
  • ahamo online-only support model with chat
  • IVR and large outsourced contact-center estate
  • Docomo Shop appointment system
What customers still can't do end-to-end (pitch this)
  • →Transactional depth — plan changes, billing corrections and points fixes still route to humans
  • →Proactive retention conversations beyond dialer capacity
  • →Cross-channel context between shops, phone, chat and app
  • →Keigo-quality voice automation for the older, phone-first segment
Opportunity map

Where agentic communications pays off first

WorkflowWhy it matters hereValueComplexitySpeedChannels
Churn-risk retention and win-back outreach
100% of the at-risk base contacted in-channel with matrix-bounded offers; save rate and offer economics attributed per conversation.
Every port-out to a discount brand compounds ARPU pressure; the at-risk base is far larger than outbound capacity can touch.
Friction today: Dialer campaigns reach a fraction of at-risk subscribers in working hours; offers depend on which operator answers; ahamo users get email blasts.
VoiceApp chatSMSLINE
Billing, plan and d POINT service desk
One keigo-grade conversation resolves bill explanation, plan optimization and points questions with writes back to the systems of record.
Bill-shock, plan-change and points questions are the highest-volume contact classes across a 90-million-line base and the d POINT economy.
Friction today: IVR trees route to queues; d POINT, billing and plan questions span systems a single human agent swivel-chairs through.
VoiceApp chatWeb
Docomo Shop overflow and appointment desk
Pre-visit triage resolves what needs no counter, books what does, and preps documents — shop capacity reserved for genuinely physical work.
A shrinking shop network concentrates demand on remaining stores; booked-out counters push frustrated customers to phone lines.
Friction today: Shop visits require reservations; simple device and procedure questions consume counter slots that data migration cases need.
App chatVoiceWeb
Watch the change

Churn-risk retention and win-back outreach: today vs the agentic model

Scenario: A 15-year subscriber's usage drops and an MNP reservation signal fires; the agent calls that evening in polite keigo, hears that a family member switched to a discount brand, explains an irumo-tier plan plus d POINT bonus within the approved matrix, and books the plan change in-call — the port-out never happens and the save is attributed.
Today
same interaction, two worlds
Agentic layer
At-risk base contacted
capacity-limited fraction
100% attempted
Platform capability
Cost per contact
$13.50 median assisted
$1.84 median self-service
Benchmark
QA coverage
1–2% sampled
100% scored
Platform capability
Sources & assumptions
  • · At-risk base contacted: Platform capability; save rate measured in pilot
  • · Cost per contact: Gartner customer service cost benchmarks, 2024
  • · QA coverage: Platform capability: every interaction logged and evaluated
  • · Gartner, customer service cost benchmarks (2024): $13.50 median assisted vs $1.84 self-service per contact
  • · McKinsey, digital-first collections research: 20–25% NPL reduction among leaders; up to 40% opex reduction with gen AI
  • · Baymard Institute: ~70% average cart abandonment (meta-analysis)
  • · IAMAI–Kantar via IBEF (2025): 900M+ Indian internet users; 98% consume Indic-language content
  • · LeadSquared and vendor funnel studies: 78% of students choose the first institution to respond (directional, vendor data)
  • · HDI / ITSM operator benchmarks: $15–25 per L1 ticket; 40–60% of L1 volume is resets/status (validate per customer)
  • · Conventional-flow wait times and volumes are typical operator patterns — assumptions to replace with the customer's own baseline
  • · Agentic-flow behaviors (context retention, 100% logging, in-line policy checks) are platform capabilities, not projections
Recommended solution

One integrated stack, opinionated for this account

Channels · Tilicho Labs
VoiceApp chatSMSLINEWeb

Voice & channel orchestration, telephony, conversational execution, session/state, routing, integration build. Capability coverage validated during implementation.

Intelligence · Google Cloud
Gemini reasoningEnterprise groundingWorkflow agentsMulti-agent orchestrationGoverned actionsEvaluation & analytics
Systems · NTT Docomo
Billing/BSSChurn scoringOffer matrixCRMd POINT ledgerPlan catalogAppointment systemKnowledge base

API access to these systems is the critical-path dependency.

Trust & languages
JapaneseEnglish

Identity-bound sessions, policy-bounded actions, 100% audit logging, human approvals at defined points, in-tenant intelligence.

Business case

The economics, with your numbers

Addressable monthly interactions6.0M
Seller assumption — replace in discovery
Current cost per interaction ($)$3.5
Industry benchmark scale — validate
Automation / assistance rate (%)55%
Seller assumption — pilot proves this
$21.0M
Current operating cost / mo
$124.7M
Modelled gross benefit / yr
0.0 mo
Payback on Transform
895%
3-yr ROI (modelled)
Automated/assisted interactions per month3.3M
Modelled AI run-cost per month (usage + cloud, system estimate)$1.2M
New monthly operating cost$10.6M

All figures are modelling estimates from the labeled inputs above — nothing here is customer-provided yet. The pilot's first job is replacing these assumptions with NTT Docomo's measured baseline. Package price covers implementation only; recurring usage billed separately.

Recommended package

Transform — $200K implementation

Transform · $200K · A broader enterprise deployment14–20 weeks phased across units

Why this package for NTT Docomo: The estate spans consumer mobile, ahamo online-only support, d POINT/d Payment and Docomo Shop overflow — multiple business units and workflows from day one, which is Transform scope; a retention pilot seeds it.

Included
  • 7–10 channels
  • Multiple inbound + outbound workflows
  • Complex enterprise integrations
  • Multiple business units or geographies
  • Advanced agent orchestration
  • Enterprise grounding
  • Governance & evaluation framework
  • Role-based human supervision
  • Custom analytics & optimization
  • Production hardening + managed rollout plan
Not included
  • ✕Usage & consumption (billed separately)
  • ✕Ongoing managed operations (contracted separately)
Recurring costs (separate from the package)

Packages cover implementation and integration only. Recurring costs are billed separately: Tilicho Labs platform usage (~$0.15/call-min indicative, usage only), Google Cloud consumption, telephony/carrier charges, managed operations, and support & optimization. No package includes unlimited usage.

Customer resources required
  • · API access + credentials for: Billing/BSS, Churn scoring, Offer matrix
  • · A named business owner for churn-risk retention and win-back outreach
  • · Security review counterpart and policy sign-off (Billing/BSS scope)
  • · Baseline metrics for the pilot's success thresholds
Executive messages

What to say to whom

CEO

“The group has declared AI central to NTT's future; applying it to Docomo's own frontline — the largest consumer service operation in the group — is the most visible, measurable proof point that strategy can produce.”

CIO / CTO

“This is a co-build: tsuzumi and NTT assets where group policy wants them, Gemini-class multilingual voice quality and the communications layer where they win — one governed orchestration layer over BSS, d POINT and CRM instead of another monolith.”

COO

“Shop closures moved workload to channels staffed for yesterday's volumes; elastic agentic capacity absorbs the shifted load without rebuilding the physical network's cost base in a call center.”

Head of Customer Service / CX (Consumer)

“Your retention capacity touches a fraction of the at-risk base and your shops are booked out; an agent that saves subscribers at 9pm and triages shop visits changes both curves at once.”

Chief Risk / Compliance Officer

“APPI-aligned handling, offer-matrix enforcement, human gates on exceptions and 100% logged conversations — tighter conduct control than any dialer floor, with audit trails regulators can actually read.”

CFO / Procurement

“Retention economics are directly measurable: save rate times ARPU against conversation cost, benchmarked against the dialer baseline in your own data — a consumption-priced pilot, not a platform bet.”

Outreach

Pre-built offer emails for NTT Docomo

Written from this account's own research — the strategic signal, the capability gap, the entry workflow, and the modelled economics — not a mail-merge template. Pick the moment and the persona, edit anything, then copy or open in your mail client.

Moment in the deal
Cold outreach — no prior conversation
Who it's addressed to
Cares about: The workflow itself and its daily failure modes
Register
Length
Draft — edit freely before sending
Open in mail client

Customer-safe by construction: drafts are composed only from customer-facing fields. Account tier, build-vs-buy classification, priority score, internal routing, and partner-commercial detail are not inputs to the composer, so they cannot appear in a draft. Money figures are always framed as modelled from the customer's own volumes. Read before sending — you own what goes out.

The pursuit

Tier 1 — immediate strategic pursuit

Why this tier

Japan's largest mobile carrier runs one of the country's biggest service operations — tens of millions of subscribers, the d POINT economy, and a shrinking Docomo Shop network pushing ever more service to remote channels — inside an NTT group that owns its own LLM, making this a co-build at national scale.

30 / 60 / 90-day plan
  • Day 0–30: Workshop with consumer CS and marketing leadership: quantify the uncontacted at-risk base and dialer save economics, then scope a retention pilot co-designed with NTT group AI stakeholders.; confirm sponsor and baseline data access; validate: Where tsuzumi and NTT DATA assets are mandated in the conversational stack — and where gaps are acknowledged
  • Day 31–60: architecture & security review with the platform team; Tilicho Labs scoping on Voice + App chat; pilot scope signed
  • Day 61–90: Transform package kickoff; churn-risk retention and win-back outreach pilot in build; success thresholds locked with the Head of Customer Service / CX (Consumer)
Recommended next step

Workshop with consumer CS and marketing leadership: quantify the uncontacted at-risk base and dialer save economics, then scope a retention pilot co-designed with NTT group AI stakeholders.

Entry: Churn-risk retention and win-back outreach · Transform package · 14–20 weeks phased across units. Human fallback throughout; success thresholds agreed before build.

Start the pursuit

Research-based priority-account universe assembled from public information, market scale, communication volume, and solution fit. This is NOT an authoritative list of top Google Cloud customers; existing Google Cloud relationships are noted only where publicly reported. Validate every account with the account team before outreach.