Maintaining customer satisfaction while creating efficient
savings is crucial for telecom service providers, especially during
a period of economic uncertainty. As every provider knows, meeting
the service expectations of customers is critical.
Even if a customer’s experience has been largely neutral
or positive, it is the few negative experiences that will stick in
his mind. Telecom service providers can’t afford to neglect
the impact of negative customer experiences associated with
services.
Competition in fixed line and mobile markets is increasingly
intense and customers are even more willing to shop around.
According to a report commissioned by Pitney Bowes, a provider of
mailstream services, customer churn in mobile telecoms hit 38
percent last year – up from 33 percent in 2005.
Additionally, Google, Youtube, Facebook and Hulu are emerging as
top providers of person content. These companies are deflecting the
key position of telecom service providers by offering end users
personalized content. If this trend continues, telecom providers
will have to deal with a greater amount of customer churn.
Consulting firm Bain & Company determined that it is six times
costlier to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one.
Telecom service providers are increasingly turning to
outsourcing companies to import their expertise on improving the
quality of customer service. Using well-established methodologies
such as Six Sigma and LEAN, outsourcers can implement incremental
changes in processes that can improve the customer experience while
also cutting out waste.
For instance, one outsourcer created templates that advisors can
fill in to make after call notes – rather than expecting them
to type notes from scratch. This has helped reduced average
handling time (AHT) by over two minutes in some cases –
creating estimated efficiency savings for a telecom service
provider client of over USD 1 million per year as well as reducing
wait times for the customer.
The review of another telecom service client revealed
communication issues between offshore customer service operation
teams and technical teams onshore. A direct communication channel
was established in order to reduce resolution times which helped in
receiving updates on “escalated cases” and creating a
speedy resolution of customer issues within 24 hours.
Process excellence initiatives carried out for one telecom
company to increase the “right first time” experience
led to cost savings of USD1.6 million and an overall impact on the
business.
Outsourcing companies can also help to steer customer behavior
away from expensive-to-process calls and help to reduce call
volumes. For instance, when customers call with routine matters
like checking account balance or paying bills, they can be reminded
that this can be done online. Outsourcers have discovered that
significant costs were incurred simply by processing the one in
five calls that came from customers calling for confirmation that a
task that they had already requested had been completed – for
instance the ordering of a new handset or the dispatch of a
replacement SIM. ‘Reassurance calls’ can be cut down by
proactively texting or leaving a message for customers when a task
has been completed.
If outsourcing companies are able to reduce the number of simple
calls, then contact center staffs are free to deal with more
detailed calls that need expert support and advice. In recent
years, the increase in device complexity has created a need for
more technical support and contact center agents who are trained to
answer a wide array of customer inquiries.
The level of technical support needed for users can be costly, and
the expertise of an outsourcing company in dealing with these kinds
of calls can be essential in keeping costs under control (e.g., by
providing support when it is needed at peak call times rather than
having advisors available at all times).
And it is not just a matter of understanding technical
specifications. Contact center staffs require good interpersonal
skills. Tasks like the collection of overdue bills require empathy.
Customers must be encouraged to cooperate rather than to ignore the
problem. And, even more important, call center staff need to be
persuasive when a customer calls with the intention of canceling
their contract.
Equally, telecom service providers have to strike a balance
between encouraging self service to reduce call volumes and
retaining an incoming flow of customer enquiries which provides a
window of opportunity to cross-sell additional products including
broadband and landline services.
Telecom companies are realizing that outsourcing companies can
provide added value in the area of turning ‘cost
centers’ like customer service into ‘profit
centers’ by selling customers new products. This obviously
has to be done with subtlety and care. No one wants to feel that
they are on the receiving end of a hard sell from their mobile
provider when they had simply called up to check their balance or
add a data bolt-on before a trip abroad. Using their deep-rooted
experience in what has succeeded and what has failed, outsourcing
companies can advise companies and import customer service lessons
from areas like banking and insurance.
Many telecom service providers are already doing this. Business
Analysts Datamonitor predicts that the telecoms outsourcing
industry will grow to more than $51 billion by 2013. With customers
now wanting to communicate via online chat and give feedback on a
telecom service provider’s performance via comments on
Twitter or Facebook, the world of customer service is changing at a
faster rate than ever. Balancing the need to keep customers happy
and persuade them to buy more products while also making efficient
savings is no easy task – and it is one that outsourcing
companies can help telecom providers achieve.
The author is executive vice-president, telecom and
media, at Firstsource