Customer Care in the LTE World

Consumers have proven their hunger for smart devices and high-bandwidth applications that operate on 3G networks and their appetites for these products and services will increase dramatically when they have access to LTE. Along with the increasing network demands, customer care functions will also encounter new pressures as subscribers seek help on how to use their devices and personalize their services.

The customer experience is fundamental to staying competitive, particularly when new services come online.  Operators will need to have strategies in place to ensure high levels of customer satisfaction for new LTE users. Yet companies must be able to keep satisfaction high without introducing new operational expenses that will offset their gains in customer revenues. If there is ever a time when customer care becomes important, this will be it.

"This could be the set up for the perfect storm," said Ben Geller, senior director for product marketing in Alcatel-Lucent's Motive product division.

In fact, the impact these new devices and services will have on customer care operations is expected to be substantial.  Customer care performance metrics already show that each improvement in service capability comes with greater customer care needs. The average handle time (AHT) that a help desk representative spends with consumers to solve problems, for example, has jumped from approximately 10minutes for feature phone customers to more than 15minutes for smart phone customers. The AHT can be as much as 30 minutes for USB modem users.

The help desk's ability to solve a customer's problem the first time the customer calls, called first call resolution (FCR), also worsens as products and services become more complex. Of all the requests that come in for mobile broadband support, for example, 40-45% require two or more calls to reach resolution, and these calls are commonly referred from the front-line to higher skill-level personnel, which increases the cost of customer care.  

Mobile operators have of course made significant investments in mobile device management, network management and OSS and BSS systems to address these needs. Even so, when a consumer calls a help desk for support, the company representative must look separately into multiple systems to identify the root cause of the consumer's problem. It is inconvenient, takes time, frustrates the customer and increases operational costs.

Imagine that a LTE subscriber who has an expensive new tablet device calls customer care because they can't log onto the network or because their connection is slow. The source of the problem could be any of a number of issues: the customer may have exceeded their data allowance; the network could be congested; the user's account might be past-due; the device could be improperly configured; or there could be a problem with the connection manager.

Finding the root cause of the problem is often like searching for a needle in a haystack, because the service management systems in place separately address device, network, and billing functions and the systems might not be able to deal with third-party content and applications. No wonder AHT is increasing, FCR is going down and top-tier service personnel are brought in on more calls.

One of Alcatel-Lucent's solutions to this challenge is the Motive ServiceView for Mobile, a unified service management platform that can aggregate and analyze information gathered from device management, network management and OSS/BSS systems to evaluate in real time how the network, device or applications are performing for the customer. Motive ServiceView can perform a root cause analysis to help the customer service representative solve the customer's problem, regardless of the problem's source in the service delivery chain, and deliver the information to the representative via a single CSR interface.

One particularly valuable attribute of the Motive ServiceView solution is its ability to automate common trouble shooting processes that account for the vast majority of CSR calls, including the following: inability to connect to the network; a slow connection; questions about data usage; questions about a specific device or problems associated with use of multiple devices; questions about services or features such as email, MMS, video streaming, synchronization or bookmarks.

"Right now, Alcatel-Lucent is deploying technologies to help operators handle the onslaught of what operators are telling us are the most common calls," Geller says.

The automated troubleshooting capability will go a long way to help operators deliver customer care for next-generation mobile broadband services and improve the customer experience while reducing operational costs.