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send an SMS notification to warn the customer and to avoid bill shock at the end of the month. Alternatively, the provider could use this opportunity to promote an upgrade to a more relevant data plan, or offer an option to pay for additional data usage via a pay-as-you-go model.
All of these customer-friendly scenarios are made possible when BSS and policy management systems work in harmony. Of course, in all of this, a key to navigating away from “all you can eat” is the ability to allow customers to manage their accounts.
Most consumers do not think about how many bytes are used while web browsing or sending emails. This has led to bill shock for some subscribers on usage-based data plans. Allowing customers to set limits on their account – or on certain parts of their
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The biggest contributor to a sub-optimal customer experience is lack of cross-channel consistency. |
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recently by UK-based telecommunications analyst firm Telesperience1 – that the biggest contributor to a sub-optimal customer experience is lack of cross-channel consistency?
Most CSPs still rely on a patchwork of discrete legacy systems – or silos. In a siloed world, rich customer data within the BSS ecosystem becomes fragmented; creating effective links between BSS and the network is immensely challenging. Multiple, disconnected views of subscriber and product information diminishes the customer experience. Lack of a strong BSS/network link impedes a “smart charging”
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accounts – is critical to satisfaction. Limits should be able to be set not only on monetary spend, but on a per unit basis if desired. For example, a parent may want limit a child’s portion of their account to one view download per day, or only during certain hours. Account controls should obviously be easy to set and change – through whichever method the customer prefers: web, device, call center, kiosk.
While this all may sound intuitive, and certainly messaging around “the customer experience” has been loud for awhile, why do customer satisfaction results for some telecomm operators remain low? Why do operators themselves admit – when surveyed
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approach. An ecosystem comprised of multiple silos makes it impossible to deliver a responsive, meaningful customer experience. Siloed ecosystems also force continued reliance on the flat-rate, “all-you-can-eat” approach to billing, particularly across converged services. In a siloed world, the many dimensions to policy are haphazard, uncoordinated, or even conflicting. This results in lost opportunities both for increased revenues and positive customer interactions.
As an alternative, an end-to-end approach that synchronizes customer and product data with the network enables “smart charging”. Equally important, a single real-time customer
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