SK Telecom Tops All Three Major Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Reclaims KCSI Top Spot After One Year

[Financial News] SKT ranked first in all three major customer satisfaction surveys in South Korea this year. After topping the National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI) and the Korean Standard Service Quality Index (KS-SQI), it also took the top spot in the Korean Customer Satisfaction Index (KCSI), reclaiming the KCSI title after one year.
SKT said on the 30th that it ranked first in the mobile phone category in this year's KCSI survey conducted by KMAC. This follows its NCSI win in April and KS-SQI win in July.
SKT had maintained the No. 1 position in KCSI for 27 years through 2024, but lost the top spot last year following a cybersecurity breach. The company explained that this year's survey showed higher scores than the previous year in key areas, including benefits for long-term customers, call and data quality, and satisfaction with pricing plans.
After the incident, SKT has gathered feedback from the field and reflected it in product and service improvements to restore customer trust. This year, it conducted a total of 730 customer experience (CX) activities, including an "outreach service" for about 35,000 elderly customers across 87 cities and counties nationwide.
On the company's founding anniversary, all executives, including CEO Jung Jae-heon, and the Customer Trust Committee visited customer centers, retail outlets, airport roaming centers, and welfare centers for people with disabilities to hear users' opinions and identify areas for improvement. They also visited long-term customers who had used the service for more than 40 years to hear their views on the services and benefits.
SKT also expanded its customer communication channels. Through the Customer Trust Committee, which comprises a 100-member customer advisory panel and external experts, the company is evaluating trust-recovery efforts and discussing ways to improve them. At the recently held 2026 Insight Day, it established trust metrics based on customers' actual usage behavior and perceived experiences and discussed improvement tasks for each metric.
SKT is also operating the CX Campus project to hear from younger customers, including college students. Reflecting students' suggestions, it created T Membership benefits centered on coffee and desserts for exam periods and planned a running-themed marketing campaign.
SKT is also pursuing service improvements using artificial intelligence (AI). It analyzes customer feedback, or voice of the customer (VOC), submitted to its customer centers with AI and uses the results to improve products and services while identifying potential inconveniences beyond complaints raised directly by customers.
AI reviews customer notification messages for accuracy and issues related to social sensitivity. The company explained that this has enabled it to maintain an incident-free record in customer communications for eight consecutive years.
AI has also been applied to network operations. At events that draw large crowds, such as fireworks festivals and cherry blossom festivals, SKT used the AI operations system "A-One" to forecast telecom demand and deploy base stations, thereby managing network quality.
Jung Jae-heon, CEO of SKT, said, "This year's KCSI No. 1 ranking reflects customers' assessment of our efforts to strengthen their trust and is also a call for us to serve customers by an even higher standard. By remaining committed to putting customers first and enhancing the customer experience through AI, we will create changes that people can feel in their daily lives and build even greater trust." 
[email protected] Yoon Hong-jip Reporter