Posted: 09/1997
Selecting a Customer Care System
By Rizwan Kheraj
| Consumers drive the market changes in today's
competitive telecommunications industry. To acquire and
retain customers in this environment, telecommunications
service providers must fully understand and exceed their
customers' expectations. Quality customer care systems
are essential. As the battle for market share heats up, incumbent service providers are faced with the task of re-examining their outdated legacy systems and selecting customer care systems that will equip them for the future. |
Situation Analysis
There are three main ways telecommunications service providers can differentiate themselves in a competitive market: through product and service offerings, price cuts, and customer care.
It's difficult to differentiate product and service offerings in the consumer's mind. Most offerings from different service providers have similar functionality, and complex packages can be confusing few companies attempt to compete solely in this arena. Some will compete on price in the short term, but this isn't sustainable in the long run as profit margins narrow. And complex pricing packages make it difficult for consumers to evaluate what they're getting from one service provider vs. another. With many companies offering similar products and pricing plans, the key differentiator in a competitive market is quality customer care.
Long distance companies, the first to exist in a competitive market following the 1984 breakup of Ma Bell, led the way in customer care. The MCI "Friends and Family" flexible billing platform was unveiled in March 1991, biting into AT&T's market share in the early 1990s. This was a significant change from the rounds of price cutting that had occurred previously in efforts to attract and retain customers. MCI placed emphasis on service differentiation and used its database as a tool to accumulate customers.
Customer care systems give telecommunications service providers the means to effectively implement sales, marketing and customer service initiatives. Service providers use these systems to identify customers, build relationships with those customers and anticipate their needs.
What Does Customer Care Encompass?
Essentially, excellent customer care means providing a positive experience each time there is contact with a customer. This comes about when sales and service representatives are able to sell the right products and services, respond rapidly to customer needs and offer courteous service. Excellent customer care means meeting these objectives in all "customer touch" situations, including marketing, sales, ordering and provisioning, billing, fulfillment and repair.
Selling the Right Product
A system that can provide information on calling patterns is essential when it comes to offering customers the right package for their particular needs. Customer care systems enable service providers to target propositions to those customers most likely to be interested.
Timely Delivery
Service representatives must be equipped to provision services, adjust billing records, diagnose and repair problems, send out fulfillment packages, etc., rapidly and be able to tell the customer when commitments will be met. A system that interfaces smoothly to legacy systems and databases bringing all required information to one place and minimizes the number of touches necessary to do a task is invaluable when it comes to the timely delivery of products and services.
Excellent Service
When the system takes care of routine and administrative tasks, service representatives have more time to spend offering courteous service to customers. They should be able to assess customer needs, close sales, proactively solve problems and gather information to update databases all without a heavy workload or having to remember a lot of details.
Key Customer Care System Requirements
When seeking a customer care solution, service providers should look for a system with the functionality and flexibility necessary to meet their changing needs. It should be easy to use, include decision support tools, support customer self-service, be able to evolve toward convergence, and support interaction with other carriers essential requirements which enable service providers to remain competitive.
Easy to Use
High staff turnover in call centers means it's imperative that customer care software is designed with the end user in mind. This will result in a system that's easy to learn and easy to use, substantially reducing training costs. And with such a system, users will be more efficient, make fewer errors, be able to focus on interacting with customers and experience greater job satisfaction.
Decision Support
Customer care systems containing decision support tools enable CSRs to more effectively meet customer needs. Decision support can range from simple information support to data mining, and can turn CSRs into effective sales agents and problem solvers. The right tools equip them to easily recommend appropriate products and services, close orders, diagnose and repair problems, schedule callbacks and add to customer profiles in the database. Decision support not only reduces workload, but ensures each CSR is being used to the best advantage even new staff members can be effective when customer care software fully supports them throughout customer contact.
Customer Self-Service
One way to win in the marketplace is to provide customers with choice. By providing cost-effective self-service channels Internet, interactive voice response (IVR) or kiosks service providers increase opportunities for customers to make contact, promoting loyalty, stimulating revenue, and gathering information. Customers can use these channels to activate, move or deactivate service, view and order new products, request fulfillment materials, make bill inquiries and payments, report problems for repair or request a callback.
Ability to Evolve Toward Convergence
To acquire and retain customers to be competitive service providers in a convergent market need customer care systems that can accommodate a range of services. It's important to invest in a flexible system, even if significant additions or changes to service offerings are not expected; business processes should define the systems, not vice versa. Different services sometimes mean a different focus or marketing strategy, and customer care systems should support that.
Support Interaction With Other Carriers (Electronic Bonding)
One of the requirements of the 1996 Telecommunications Act is that ILECs unbundle their operations support systems (OSSs), and provide competitors with electronic access to provisioning, ordering, billing, maintenance, and repair systems. Electronic bonding a way of interconnecting telecommunications information systems for on-line, real time communications is a high priority. It's designed to be fully interoperable between network elements and to communicate with other compatible systems in a global multivendor environment. Some standards for electronic bonding are still being defined.
Customer care software should support the requirements for electronic bonding. It should be able to work with incomplete information received from other service providers, it should be able to keep information partitioned so only some of it is visible to other service providers, and it should provide one unified, simple view to CSRs.
To Buy or Build
Players in the customer care market include information technology (IT) groups, systems integrators and product vendors. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.
In-house IT groups, operating in most large incumbent telcos, have the advantage of a thorough knowledge of the company's particular needs and business processes and can develop a completely custom-built solution. However, their systems tend to have a long deployment time, development can be very expensive and IT groups may lack knowledge of leading-edge technologies.
Systems integrators tend to be large and have extensive industry experience, offering a range of services which can be customized as necessary. When developing a solution, they sometimes pull together a variety of vendors to contribute to the project. These systems, however, can have the disadvantage of a long deployment time.
Product vendors often have an established installed base and offer off- the-shelf products that are quick to deploy. Many are coming up with modular customer care solutions that can be "dropped in" to the system. Generally, vendors do not do extensive customization work and their solutions can be less flexible; in some cases, customization is taken care of by an IT group or systems integrator contributing to the project. Customer care product vendors are rarely exclusively focused on telecommunications.
Customer Care System Architectural Requirements
As well as supporting telecommunications service providers through all "customer-touch" situations, a customer care system should be flexible and cost-effective. It's important the system is fully configurable, so it can be tailored to a particular business environment and continue to meet company needs as the market evolves. It should be simple to make changes and additions to user interfaces, add new products and services, change business processes or add new back-office systems. Other requirements: The system should integrate tightly with CTI equipment; be independent from platforms, operating systems and databases; support third-party applications; be scalable and robust; and support the requirements for electronic bonding.
Sample Architectural Approach
The business API is developed on an open standard, ensuring the system permits communication with diverse applications. A domain model common to the IVR, graphical and Web user interfaces enables the system to communicate with diverse CTI equipment and back-office systems and supports all business tasks including marketing, sales, billing and repair. Some business functionality is implemented within the software, while some soft-coded and easily configurable functionality is loaded from an external database. From the perspective of the applications using the business API, there is no difference between hard- and soft- coded functionality. A purpose-built data server shields the application from details of diverse back-office systems and facilitates interaction with multiple legacy systems and databases.
Business Issues
When seeking a customer care system from a software vendor, telecommunications service providers need to take into account many factors, including stability and history. How long has the vendor been around? How many systems has the vendor deployed? What partnerships does the vendor have with other vendors that could affect the completeness of the solution? Answers to these questions will help narrow the field of vendors offering customer care solutions.
Most importantly, however, telecommunications service providers should seek a customer care vendor with experience in their industry. The telecommunications domain is a complex one, and a vendor with a telecommunications-specific solution will reduce the need for costly customization work and minimize deployment time.
Deregulation in telecommunications has brought about the need for technology to support customer-centered businesses. And a well-designed customer care system is the key to high-quality customer service. It enables telecommunications service providers to engage in activities previously not thought possible each contact with a customer can be a chance to offer quality service, gather information and close sales. Inbound calls can be viewed not as potential problems, but as opportunities to broaden relationships.
When selecting a customer care system, service providers need to ensure it meets their needs for flexibility and extensibility. And if seeking a vendor solution, service providers should seek an established vendor with a track record of successful deployments who can offer a quality telecommunications-specific solution.
| IT Group | Systems Integrators | Product Vendors | |
| Offerings | *totally custom |
*range from total to semi-custom |
*little or no custom |
| Strengths | *detailed knowledge |
*relative size and industry experience |
*usually quick to deploy * often more cost-effective * established installed base |
| Weaknesses | * long deployment time * often go over budget * lack advanced technologies |
* long deployment time | * can be less flexible * often not vertically focused |
Dr. Rizwan Kheraj, vice president, product management and marketing for MPR Extensys, Inc., can be reached at (888) 204-0111 or http://www.mprextensys.com. MPR Extensys Inc. designs, develops and sells customer care systems for the telecom industry worldwide.
