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| The photo shows LG Uplus' first unmanned store in downtown Seoul, where customers are able to sign up for membership with the mobile carrier as well as purchase new phones. Courtesy of LG Uplus |
By Kim Bo-eun
Telecom company LG Uplus opened its first unmanned store in downtown Seoul on Monday, hoping to strengthen its digital competitiveness and cater to the demands of digitally-driven consumers.
"We are seeking to reset systems and make them more efficient based on customer preferences for contactless services amid the COVID-19 pandemic," LG Uplus' head of consumer sales Lim Kyung-hoon said in an online press conference. The LG Group's telecom unit said the new store enables customers to walk in and sign up for a membership as well as purchase devices.
At the unmanned store, customers are issued QR codes after signing up digitally for a desired service. With the code, customers are able to pick up purchased products that are placed in a locker. The stores are operated 24/7. Customers can call up help centers when they experience problems signing up for services.
LG plans to open unmanned stores in Busan and Daejeon by the first half of this year, and in Daegu and Gwangju by the end of the year. The country's top mobile carrier SK Telecom set up an unmanned store in the vibrant district of Hongdae in October last year. KT opened a hybrid store in January in Daegu.
LG's AI chatbot uses Google's Bert deep-learning language model. LG Uplus plans to develop the technology further by working with LG Group's AI Research Lab. The company added that the latest store mainly targets digitally driven millennials born between 1984 and 1994 and Generation Z born after the mid-1990s. LG Uplus said it selected the office district of Jongno as the site of the unmanned store due to its high concentration of young workers.
The store is part of the No. 3 telecom firm's strategy to win over the hearts of more customers as the country's three mobile carriers continue battling to win over each other's clients. The company is also seeking to develop new growth engines as the local telecom market has reached saturation.
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