SA telcos embrace online customer service
That is the word from John Ziniades, CEO of Consology, a self-service pioneer and local distributor of edocs CSS solutions. He says that most of SA’s telcos and service providers have already implemented CSS and launched these services to their customers, or plan to do so in the near future.
"Local telecoms companies face a host of challenges – from customer churn, which is set to rise when number portability comes into effect, to a reputation for poor customer service and the high costs of servicing customers through a contact centre," says Ziniades. "CSS is a proven technology that helps them to tackle these issues head-on."
Self-service appeals to telcos because it helps them to drive transaction costs down. Self-service transactions take place with little or no human contact. That means telcos can shift service and sales employees towards performing complex and strategic value-added transactions while allowing customers to take care of routine transactions themselves.
For customers, the benefits include convenience and more control over relationships with their telecommunications service provider – no more long holding periods waiting for a contact centre operator to respond to their calls.
For telcos, the bill is the hook for CSS. Ziniades says that billing has always held a central position in the telecom world because of the complexity of the bills and their position as the primary interface between telco and subscriber. Telecom bills meet three criteria that make them particularly well suited to self-service solutions: they arrive frequently (i.e. once a month); their amount varies between billing periods; and they contain detail that lends itself to scrutiny and analysis.
Billing queries place an enormous amount of pressure on contact centres at most telecom firms – at some operators and service providers, 70 – 80% of contact centre calls relate to billing enquiries, Ziniades points out. By allowing customers to manage their accounts online, operators and service providers can achieve vast cost savings on customer support, while allowing subscribers to resolve their queries quicker and more conveniently.
International telcos such as AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile have managed to shift 25% or more of their customers onto their e-billing portals, notes Ziniades. Now, they are starting to extend their offerings into full-blown CSS solutions that empower subscribers to take charge of their relationships with the telco.
CSS is particularly important for telcos because of the complexity of the products and services they offer. These are becoming increasing difficult to deal with through the call centre and many customers would prefer to research and activate online as needed.
At the same time, CSS has evolved from static systems into dynamic and fully interactive systems that give subscribers a far richer set of functions and information than the traditional paper bill and contact centre.
For example, an online bill gives operators and service providers an opportunity to cross and up-sell services and to shift processes such as activation of new services (international roaming, for example) to the online channel.
Operators can use the bill as a tool for informing the customer that he or she is eligible for an upgrade, use it to market new services or advise a customer to migrate to a new contract package.
The self-service options that operators and service providers can offer include giving the customer the ability to manage their accounts, execute transactions, conduct research (e.g. compare contract packages, investigate problems, analyse activity) and interact with the telco (initiate disputes, report problems escalate issues).
Concludes Ziniades: "Reducing the costs of billing was the primary driver for e-billing in the technology’s infancy, but most telcos are now looking towards online customer care as a means of increasing customer satisfaction. Service levels are directly related to churn, and CSS allows telcos to concentrate on offering better value-added service while driving down costs."
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