According to a press release on 25 April 2019, global tech giant, IBM has entered into an agreement with Lenovo, the Chinese multinational technology company, in order to apply blockchain in Lenovo’s customer service.

IBM is a US-based computer, technology, and IT corporation which is headquartered in New York. It is the world’s biggest technology firm which deals with manufacturing and selling computer hardware and software and offers consulting, hosting, and infrastructure services in various areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology.

Vivek Mahajan, IBM General Manager of Technology Support and Services stated: “Data can have an unprecedented impact on the enterprise and artificial intelligence can take customer service to a whole new level of personalization. This global collaboration with Lenovo further strengthens our long-standing relationship and will help to empower technicians in every corner of the globe to help deliver service excellence using the power of Blockchain and Cognitive Computing.”

After Alibaba, IBM will now be applying blockchain technology in the customer service processes of Lenovo’s data center group. Alibaba group is a public Chinese company specializing in the e-commerce domain and owns alibaba.com, the business to a business web portal. It has several platforms such as Alibaba Pictures for film direction, AliPay for online payments, and Alibaba Express, an international trading platform.

Alibaba is a blockchain patent developed by IBM. This will be used to monitor hardware and software supply chains used in its data centers. According to a study conducted by IBM Research, $1 trillion is spent on 265 billion customer service calls industry-wide each year. 50% of the calls reportedly go unresolved. The data provided by another recent report revealed that poor customer service costs businesses more than $75 billion a year.

This collaboration of Lenovo with IBM will help Lenovo in taking customer care to the next level. Whenever a customer connects with an agent for Lenovo’s networking, storage, or server devices, IBM’s virtual assistant for technical support uses contextual recognition and natural language capabilities to personalize conversations. It is trained to ask targeted questions about service issues and provide solution advice. It will also access key customer information.

Lenovo is a global leader in the PC market. It is an innovative, international technology company which develops, manufactures, and markets high quality, cutting-edge PC products, and value-added professional services. They help customers in achieving their goals such as productivity for business and enhancement of personal life.

In the words of Laura Laltrello, Vice President and General Manager of Lenovo Data Center Group, “The enterprise today is equipped with a host of new technology solutions built to offer customers unprecedented support and deliver a world-class customer experience. We are looking forward to working with IBM to take the next step with our customers to deliver a personalized and seamless experience that ensures we continue to deliver industry-leading customer satisfaction in data center support.”

IBM Technology Support Services offers proactive, reactive, onsite, and remote support for more than 30,000 IBM and non-IBM products. It receives 50 million service requests per year from more than 200 countries across the globe.