Customers want their questions answered the way they want and in the most convenient manner
possible, say mobile phone carriers and analysts. As carriers try to understand how their customers want their questions
addressed and problems resolved, many are finding a solution in automation and the Internet.
“The call center
is evolving into a contact center with multiple touch points,” said Collin McBride, senior manager of call center
technologies with Sprint PCS, a nationwide personal communications services carrier. “We’re no longer telling
the customer how they can contact us. They can use the method that is most convenient.”
With operators’ call
centers continually flooded with routine calls about billing, coverage and pricing plans, carriers are looking to find
more resources, other than people, to answer customers’ questions. Intense competition in the wireless industry also is
spurring carriers to find ways to drive down costs.
“We know this from more mature industries that many of
the calls coming in are for the same reasons and have many answers associated with them,” said Richard Siber,
associate partner with Andersen Consulting in Boston. “If carriers are able to have consumers walk through an
automated system or the Internet, it drives the cost down considerably.”
Sprint PCS, which added an industry-
record 836,000 mobile phone subscribers last quarter, has spent the last year-and-a-half studying why customers call
their centers and off-loading the common calls to an automated system or sending customers to Web
sites.
“This is a more cost-effective solution for us, but the key driver is being able to provide anytime
contact,” said McBride.
Sprint’s services include integrated voice response systems that tell customers the
number of minutes used since the last bill cycle and online IVR tutorials that explain to customers how to use their
phones. Sprint’s IVR applications are all fax-enabled so customers can receive faxed information on how to read their
bills. On the Internet, Sprint PCS recently launched an E-commerce and an E-care site, where customers can obtain
information on their minute usage, account balance and new products.
“Calls (to a live customer-care
representative) are reducing to some degree, but at the same time they are not reducing as being handled through
automation,” said McBride. “Customers are liking that ability.”
With broad acceptance of the
World Wide Web, carriers this year will be looking to marry some sort of customer self-care and billing over the
Internet with their traditional customer service methods, say analysts. Many operators today already offer online
shopping for products and rate plans.
“I think as carriers begin to integrate technology into the care mind-set,
the Internet is a logical extension of that. That will become more and more likely and more readily embraced,”
said Hunt Eggleston, president of Technology Trends Inc. in San Diego. “You can take the human element out of
the equation up to a certain point.”
Michael Lynch, co-founder and executive vice president of Longmont,
Colo.-based Novazen Inc., a firm that offers Internet-based software for electronic billing management and interactive
customer care to industries including telecommunications, financial and health industries, said the base of consumers
that have access to the Internet is there to justify investment for carriers.
“Ironically, more Americans have
access to the Internet via work than they do at home, and many are starting to pay their bills over the Internet while at
work,” said Lynch. “Cellular companies have a good probability of a high adoption rate because they tend
to attract more affluent consumers who have access to the Internet.”
Novazen recently formed an alliance with
International Telecommunication Data Systems Inc., a provider of customer-care and billing services to the wireless
industry, that will include Novazen’s Internet-based billing and customer-care software in ITDS’s suite of products and
services. Internet customer care will give customers the ability to view and change their current product mix, create,
manage and track trouble tickets, pay bills or change their addresses over the Web.
Novazen is working to integrate
its Internet solution with traditional call center systems so that customers can interact with customer service
representatives, share the same view on the Internet and communicate in real time.
“Several of ITDS’s
existing cellular customers are very excited about it, and we’re moving very rapidly to get their bills on the Internet and
do other customer-care related functions,” said Lynch.
“The benefit of the Internet is 24 hours, seven
days a week access and extremely low cost to the carrier,” said Siber. “There’s always a time measurement
associated with a resolution. On the Internet, consumers can leisurely explore their questions.”
Lynch said the
average call to a customer-service center lasts six minutes and costs about $1.50 per minute. If carriers can encourage
customers to resolve those most frequently asked questions online, they can dramatically reduce the quantity of
inbound calls, he said.
Customers’ attitudes toward traditional customer service also are driving the use of the
Internet, said Lynch. Many customers have a strong disdain for calling up and waiting to talk to a person, who may
then pass them on to another representative.
And the marketing opportunities are plentiful.
“When you
bring customers online to view and pay bills, you have opened up an opportunity for a fantastic environment to market
to the customer repeatedly,” said Lynch. “You can analyze a customer’s behavior and market to them
products and services that have a high probability to that customer.”
For instance, when customers log in to
view their bill or resolve questions, carriers can send them messages offering them a better pricing plan that suits their
calling patterns.
“You also can control the features that different customers have access to,” said Lynch.
“You can give trouble-ticketing options to your business customers.”
