DIY customer care

Internet-based banking, bill paying and shopping are becoming ever more popular as consumers find they can manage their affairs online quickly and easily. Now the same attributes are being translated to telcom services via self-care solutions. For independents, an online self-care solution saves time among the often-overstretched customer service reps and eliminates a lot of mundane work for switch technicians.

In the past several months, Phonetics has announced that several independent rural telcos have started using its Switchmaxx Unified Self Care solution. Switchmaxx provides business and residential customers with a customizable interface that integrates with a telco's switch infrastructure and powers its Web site, bridging multiple service offerings and integrating diverse systems.

Phonetics CEO David Raehpour said the company is focusing its efforts on the Tier 3 carrier marketplace, which primarily serves residential customers.

Dan Creed, Phonetics chief sales officer, said Web-based self-care is particularly important for rural telcos to reach out to the coveted 18-to-44-year-old market audience.

“For self-care to be effective, you've got to reach your customer wherever they're at in the rural markets on their own terms,” Creed said. “Today, their own terms are the Internet. What Switchmaxx has done is to provide the telephone companies' services on a 24-hour basis without requiring the telephone companies to staff up for those services, allowing [customers] to shop, buy and manage every service under the roof of that telephone company online.”

West-central Idaho's Cambridge Telephone is among the latest to sign on. Cambridge selected the solution to allow its customers the ability to order and manage voice, Internet and wireless services through a point-and-click Web interface. The carrier's customer base is 90% residential, all of who will be able to shop for and manage voice features, including Web voice mail and new custom calling features.

Wheat State Telephone, based in Udall, Kan., purchased the Switchmaxx solution in April 2004 and recently rolled it out after extensive testing. The telco serves mainly residential customers with a small staff of 19. With almost half of that group as administrative staff, the company wanted to improve customer service for subscribers, while lightening the load for its CSRs and other employees.

“We can't afford to have customer service people on weekends and nights, and of course, if we're not there to answer the questions at the time, we may lose out on a potential sale,” said Archie Macias, Wheat State general manager. “If customers access it during the daytime, it's one less phone contact and that relieves our customer service folks — they're already pretty well stretched. But it also gives the ability to our customers to access it any time they want, day, night or weekend, so it really gives us that 24/7 availability.”

The service comes at a time when consumers are increasingly comfortable with Web-based transactions.

“More customers seem to be wanting to go online and are comfortable taking care of their own services, so this gives us that ability,” Macias said.

Creed said in many rural communities, it isn't unusual for 70% of a carrier's customers to come into a telco's front office and pay their bill face-to-face. Self-care solutions can assist CSRs in serving customers who want that interaction.

Rock Port Telephone, a 2000 access-line co-op based in Rock Port, Mo., is using Phonetics system in that way. The telco offers local voice, DBS satellite service, business telephone systems, cellular services and Internet. Rob Lee, chief technical officer for Rock Port Telephone, said for his company, the solution has made it possible for customers to walk in and receive nearly instantaneous deployment of new services, usually within 30 seconds. Integrated billing and follow-up verification from CSRs is implemented the same day the service is added.

“We're giving better customer service,” he said. “This speeds the process for the end customer and on the switch-tech side of the house — having to turn off and turn on features because the interface of a Nortel [DMS 10 switch] being very technical, now I'm able to use them in other areas that are better-suited for their skills set.”

Creed said small telcos also see the self-care solution as a way they can step up and compete with larger carriers.

“The big Bells and the big companies haven't adopted this approach yet and probably won't be able to for a while,” he said. “What happens at Cambridge, as in others, is that they see the opportunity for a brief shining moment in time to have something that the big boys don't, and they can compete in a way that they've never been able to before. And because of that, they can go in and offer CLEC services [in neighboring towns].”

Convenience notwithstanding, Phonetics' Raehpour believes the solution can increase revenue opportunities by providing a visual interface for services consumers may be unaware of or find complicated.

“We bring some intelligent applications to the table like one-number service, Web voice mail — where you can go online and actually listen to your voice mail messages and forward them to other people,” he said. “ The entire communications portal to the home concept where you have all of these various features that you can implement through the visual interface.”

Rock Port's Lee agrees, noting that while some carriers have advanced services, getting consumers to activate them is difficult in a phone-only environment.

“The enhanced features such as follow-me call forwarding, follow-me call roaming, all of those options you have today, but using the keypad is not a real smooth way of provisioning those features from home,” he said. “So this allows a Web interface to go in and turn off and turn on features.”

Wheat State's Macias, who also serves as the chairman of the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies, thinks self-care will be a big part of the future for independents.

“I think this is really just the beginning,” he said. “I can see it down the road in virtually any service that we, or any telco, offers. With the proper interface, the customer should be able to sign up for it. So I think it's going to be a help for us and our customers.”