CUSTOMER CARE: The One-up Game

T
he telecommunications environment
is in continuous motion. Is there a more dynamic sector? Demands
from users of telecommunications services are increasing. Thanks
to liberalization they will now have greater free choice. This
choice depends on the price/performance ratio, the quality of
the services offered, the actual service offering and the
potential of the supplier to make new services available
rapidly.

The liberalized telecom
market opens up a wealth of challenges for the service provider,
which he is forced to face up to. A wide variety of offering
have to be billed (both on the customer and operator sides) and
the administration required for new services is increasing just
as continuously as criminal acts in the network. What is the
solution?

New solutions are coming
up that accept these challenges and offer systems which help the
service provider to meet the daily challenges of his customers.

Clever Billing
System

Service
providers should look at a billing suite, which allows the
provider to register billing data from various systems and
networks and to assemble it in such a way that a
customer-specific, clearly laid out bill can be produced. In
this case the customer can be an "end-user" of a
telecommunications service or another service provider who
routes call over the network. All these customers expect
individual services they have used to be clearly visible on the
bill.

To keep the service
provider’s operational costs within acceptable limits
(otherwise he would simply not be able to make special offers)
the billing solution should be able to verify bills from other
network operators or service providers. Every provider has
interconnection contract with other network operators and
service providers. This makes it possible for him to route calls
via third-party network or to offer services from other
providers on his own network. He receives bills for these
services and he must check these for correctness. This aspect is
becoming increasingly important with the ever-growing number of
service providers and new cooperation agreements.

Misuse in the
Network

Service
providers should go for a system for detecting network misuse–something
that gives the service provider room to react immediately when a
customer exhibits "unusual" behaviour. This could, for
instance, be unusually high call charges. For instance, if a
customer "normally" has a monthly bill of Rs 1,500 and
this sum has already been exceeded after one week, the systems
generates an alarm and the service provider can initiate the
necessary measures. A comprehensive system that recognizes the
most varying types of misuse is, therefore, an important
instrument for the service provider in the customer care sector
and protects him from damage to his image and loss of revenue.

Retain the
Overview

As
a result of the increasing competitive pressure, the prices for
network capacity are being lowered continuously. Often it is
cheaper for service providers to lease national and
international network capacity than to expand their own network.
There are solutions available for managing leased telecom
services. These solutions allow the service provider to optimize
the organization of operational costs in this area. The system
manages the leased services and capacity of other network
operators or service providers, together with the associated
contracts, and checks these for optimal loading.

Customer
Contact via Call Centre

The
most important part of a first class customer service in a
company is the way a customer is handled. If customer
requirements are dealt with immediately in a competent manner—with
the necessary customer information available in the background—the
customer will feel she/he is in good hands.

The advantages of a call
centre for a company, particularly in today’s high competitive
market are obvious. Customers of a service provider may not wish
to purchase their own call centre. Or perhaps they need one only
for a limited period. In this situation a network-based call
centre offers the ideal solution. In this case the functions are
generated in the network. A service provider must today be in a
position to offer his business customers such network-based call
centre services if he is to be able to satisfy, both flexibly
and quickly, their demands for site independence, accessibility
and range of functions without major investments.

Courtesy:
Ascom