He who hesitates: NewSouth races with itself to gain dominance

Since its implementation of Daleen's Billplex solution in June, NewSouth Communications has gone on an operations support system development spree by successfully integrating Great Plains' accounting software and the Harris Network Management platform. It also has activated Eftia's Pre.Scribe trouble ticket system.

With functional systems in place, NewSouth has focused on improving customer service and has capped its aggressive string of enhancements with the integration of Inlogic Software's E-Care customer self-care solution.

"We set out a plan in 1997 and never missed a target," said Michael LaFrance, president and CEO of NewSouth.

The company's recent performance has brought original investors, including J.P. Morgan, First Union and AT&T Ventures, back with an infusion of more cash. NewSouth is using the funds for capital expenditures such as Lucent Technologies' 5ESS Anywhere switches, Cisco Systems' routers, data switches and ATM equipment.

"We aim to be the dominant competitive carrier in the nine-state BellSouth region," LaFrance said. "We want to be all things to some people."

In particular, NewSouth wants to concentrate on customers, and Inlogic's E-Care solution provides the opportunity. "Our real focus is to improve customer service and give our customers the tools for managing and analyzing their accounts at their convenience," said Rob Whritenour, senior manager of billing at NewSouth and the principal decision-maker in the Inlogic selection.

One tool is the e-bill presentment and payment (EBPP) feature of E-Care, which lets customers view their bill using a standard Web browser, then sort the billing detail by date, time and other criteria. Customers can then download the information to a spreadsheet, database or analysis tool, Whritenour said.

NewSouth opted for a phased implementation. Phase one has involved beta testing with five of NewSouth's 600 customers for the last two billing cycles and will conclude this month.

"Phase two will offer performance reports, and based on those reports, customers can add lines automatically. They can order lines based on usage," LaFrance said. It also will give customers access into the trouble ticket system. Phase two is targeted for the fourth quarter.

"NewSouth customers can view their usage data prior to a bill being rendered," said Ming Han, manager of product development at Inlogic. "They can view their usage through the E-Care usage analyzer immediately after it has been rated. NewSouth typically rates usage every 30 minutes."

EBPP is supported by an e-bill mediation layer that combines near real-time rated usage - often fromdifferent sources - and presents it in a common object layer (see figure).

NewSouth will use its own programmers to customize the presentation of e-bills. "When we look for a software vendor, we look to buy off-the-shelf, work with the vendor, then train our own programmers so we can do future changes in-house," said J. Edward Terrell, NewSouth's executive vice president of operations.

The carrier has its own research and development department, which LaFrance said is "a little unusual for a company our age and size, but critical for keeping up with the technology curve and staying ahead."

Inlogic also recently announced NewSouth's adoption of its RequestFlow solution for local service requests and access service requests.