Cox moving to self-activation

Motive Communications said this week that Cox Communications has licensed the company’s xi Smart Service Suite to provide self-activation and auto-provisioning for its cable modem customers.

Previously Cox has been using Motive software to enable new customers to self-install their service. The new software will fully automate the service activation experience, allowing users to self-install the service and get problems fixed or questions answered electronically, without the need to call a Cox service representative.

For Cox, the deployment of the new software should significantly reduce the number of calls handled by CSRs, reducing their costs and churn, said Kenny Van Zant, executive vice president for Motive’s communications group.

The vendor’s built-in auto-provisioning framework streamlines broadband activation by adding interfaces into Cox's existing operational support systems.

“If you can carve off a fraction of those [customer service] calls that’s a huge savings,” said Van Zant.

In the Cox deployment, Motive also added support for what it calls web-based flows. Under this architecture, the part of the workflow process that the customer is in control of is stored and executed on Cox’s servers. Typically, that portion of the process is stored and executed on the user’s PC.

“It enables a company like Cox to more rapidly modify and integrate,” said Van Zant.