Changing Customer Self-Service Dynamics of Telecom Industry
Guest Post by
Arun Kanojia, Senior Associate Consultant, Infosys
Today, there is a need for Telco's, which are service-focused, to evolve rapidly in order to keep pace with the constant demand for personalized, real-time service delivery to customers.
In the currently changing telecom business, waiting for information, answers and support is a no-no for customers - they want assistance right away. Employees like Customer Service Reps, Field Agents, etc. also need to feel confident that they have access to a current, relevant knowledge base, so they can perform to the customer's expectations.
Customer self-service in today's scenario:
It provides an autonomous communications channel enabling customers to obtain ongoing support on an "anytime" basis.
Commonly referred to as "virtual agent software", "virtual assistant software", and "online customer self-service", web self-service tools often leverage an interactive question/answer platform that addresses customer questions expressed in natural language, with a single, accurate, consistent and approved answer, regardless of the channel used by the customer to ask the question.
Why Telecom service providers should be interested in web-self service by customers?
With plenty of choices and high service expectations to be met, current consumers demand for accurate, rapid and many times instant service and support as well. Most of the telecom service providers, as per industry benchmarks, deliver poor-to-average online customer experience. These service providers struggle with increasing support cost and their customer support systems fail to keep pace with demanding customer base and increasing complex product offerings.
Various Oracle Application's like "InQuira" are capable of helping Telecom operators to improve the effectiveness of their customer-service operations by helping call center representatives find accurate answers to customer questions, as well as allowing customers to find answers on their own through self-service portals and community forums.
Benefits of using knowledge management application's, to improve customer experience in self-service management:
• A seamlessly integrated Self-Service across channels, online forums, CRM applications with knowledge management tools gives an edge in servicing the customer.
• Customer service and satisfaction is improved due to high value differentiated contact center and online experience.
• Shift in focus from capturing various customer interactions to keeping focus on customer resolution.
• Guided and intelligent search capabilities of knowledge management based applications (example: InQuira) fetch answers accurately and quickly, helping customers to spend more time on solving problems, rather on research.
• These applications can provide agents in the contact center with ready handed, linked and managed answers, which in turn accelerates productivity.
The service offering and delivery complexities are known to the telecom vendors. However, the web-savvy user sees the telecom service from an altogether different dimension. In a customer's perspective, everything that is available on portals should be less complex or easier to use. The market players who get insight on this, and acts to en-cash the opportunity, not just strengthen customer loyalty but also aids in drastically reducing the customer support costs.
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