Blu Label in AI offensive to gain insights

Blu Label Unlimited co-CEOs, bothers Brett and Mark Levy. (Graphic: Nicola Mawson with an image from Freepik)

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Blu Label Unlimited (BLU) is layering artificial intelligence (AI) on top of its datasets, to drive its sales strategy, improve customer experience and generate leads for insurance companies.

The company, which yesterday released its results for the six months to March, rebranded from Blue Label Telecoms last year to Blu Label Unlimited as it sharpened its core focus ahead of spinning Cell C out as a separately listed company.

BLU’s reported results were clouded by a downward revaluation of its stake in Cell C, leading to an earnings per share loss of 555.56c, a 1 363% decline year-over-year. However, stripping out Cell C and related items, revenue came in at R5 billion, with net profit after tax of R389 million and earnings per share of 43.22c.

Following the restructuring, BLU now operates as a digital distribution and payments intermediary in the prepaid ecosystem by leveraging several of its new ‘buckets of solutions’ that combine physical and virtual distribution capabilities with an integrated digital ecosystem.

Among these are its distribution, platform, and data and AI solutions units, which provide the technological infrastructure, analytics capabilities and digital tools behind BLU’s merchant, retailer and partner enablement strategy.

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Co-CEO Brett Levy tells ITWeb that the company is layering AI onto its data lakes to gain insights into both the merchant and the customer environment. “What those layers of AI do, the intelligence that it advances on the actual end consumer and the end merchants, is absolutely phenomenal.”

Brett Levy explains that this results in a complete view of the merchant and consumer environment, enabling it to identify patterns, optimise offerings and deliver more targeted solutions.

All of this intelligence is something that its data “by itself could never give us in the past”.

BLU has also deployed AI in its call centres, where Brett Levy says automation has significantly improved customer satisfaction metrics. He says its inbound complaints-focused call centre was reduced from 300 seats to 40, while the net promoter score improved from 84% to 98%.

Co-CEO Mark Levy explains that, through a Protection of Personal Information Act-compliant database, BLU can link transaction behaviour to consumers in a way that enables them to work out spending patterns and habits.

While retailers are already able to link shopping behaviour to individual people, BLU goes beyond that and aggregates multiple datasets rather than relying on single-store basket data, says Brett Levy. Aggregating broader datasets enables BLU to build a more complete view of consumer behaviour, he says.

Brett Levy cites the example of knowing that a consumer buys fuel at four in the afternoon every Friday, which means the petrol station can use this intelligence to dish up adverts that combine other spending behaviour, such as offering the consumer a discount on the brand of washing powder that the data indicates they use.

For example, says Mark Levy, BLU can determine which consumers would make solid and credit-worthy leads for insurance companies based on how and where they shop, enabling those financial service providers to pitch products to them.

Through BLU’s data set, it’s able to determine spending patterns and other behaviour, which provides insights into a consumer’s spending power.

“So, he’s spending R1 000 on airtime a month in cash, and the average contract sold today is R120, who’s more valuable? So, for the last 10 years, the guy has spent R1 000 a month, yet he’s not bankable or credit-worthy to do traditional transactions. And that’s where it’s going to evolve,” notes Mark Levy, adding that AI interprets consumer behaviour patterns.

This brings more people into the formal economy, says Mark Levy. He points to the fact that there are about 15 million people in South Africa who have a “high propensity” to use cash rather than transact through a traditional bank account.

TransUnion CEO Lee Naik has noted that bringing an additional 16 million financially-excluded South Africans into the formal economy has the potential to add R173 billion to gross domestic product.

South Africa’s GDP is approximately R6.5 trillion at the current exchange rate of R15.85 to the dollar as of this morning. National Treasury expects the economy to grow at 1.4% this year, Finance minister Enoch Godongwana said yesterday afternoon during his presentation of the National Budget.