Customer e-self-service:

from Web-based Interface to Single Platform of Service Provisioning

Review of IV CBOSS User conference (October, 1-6, 2002, Belek, Turkey) materials performs our correspondent, Jury Rosikov

Billing and CTI magazine #6/2002

The Internet as a new media for delivery of billing and customer care services provides telecom operators comprehensive competitive advantages that when realized give subscribers feature-rich capabilities for remote self-servicing, paying bills and access to a range of innovative value-added services. Geographically distributed branch- and service provider networks become a usual and often mission-critical feature of a successful operator’s business. Connection of sales points and subscriber servicing offices to a telco’s OSS radically increases responsiveness and quality of customer care. In this scenario, Internet-mediated connection turns out to be simple and cost-effective solution.

Evolution to e-self-service

Primary objectives for any customer-centered telecom operator are acquiring and retention of subscribers. Elaborated marketing programs are devised to sign up new users, with tariffs living until the arrival of a more appealing initiative of a competing operator. Customer departments are doomed to carry a heavy burden of service requests and case management. New marketing strategies aligned with introduction of new services and aggressive signup of new users impose demanding requirements on the performance of customer department and individual proficiency of specialists and consultants. One should also keep in mind prospective customers who place special emphasis of quality customer care when choosing an operator.
On the other hand, a growing subscriber base demands more resources, more personnel at the customer department, and controlling costs becomes a true challenge for an operator.
Numerous researches show that out of the five calls made to a customer contact center only one requires live participation of an operator. Other 80% of inquiries can be successfully resolved through an IVR or using a Web portal of an operator. Usually, these 80% of calls fall into the category of inquiries that request/verify bills, modify current subscription, etc. This is when the idea of a subscriber self-service comes up. A very attractive solution of self-service is a Web-based interface to the OSS deployed by the operator. With a self-service option available, effectiveness of a customer department increases dramatically, the load to the contact center reduces and it becomes available for handling more valuable calls. For example, calls from prospective customers who are eager to get their first impression of the customer-facing units of an operator. Besides calls to contact centers, one should bear in mind live lines to customer servicing offices that become radically shorter with the availability of the electronic self-service option. 
Internet Customer Service CBOSSics, a product from CBOSS, brings solution to this problem, providing self-care capabilities for telecom service subscribers. With CBOSSics, a subscriber can enjoy the comfort of self-care transactions accessing the required functionalities over the Internet.
Saving this article of the comprehensive details of ROI for Internet Customer Service, it becomes obvious even from a draft assessment that rent of the new offices for customer servicing and customer loyalty mercilessly corrupted in the long lines to the crowded customer service offices will overweight the cost associated with deployment of the new technology.

Targeting Segmented Audience

Never before has the opportunity existed to customize a customer experience based upon what we know about customer preferences. The Internet provides the ability to intelligently present information and products in micro-segment fashion that are uniquely targeted to consumers. Talking about larger segments, let’s turn to materials of IV Annual CBOSS User Conference: «CBOSS User Group 2002, CBOSS Internet Systems». According to Eugenie Korneyev, Vice President of CBOSS Group, subscribers of a telecom operator can be grouped into three large divisions:

1. Standard private subscribers ("standard subscribers") — the subscribers that own one service application [usually a subscriber number with associated set of services, tariff, etc.]. Such subscribers are quite happy with the standard capabilities of IVR/ICS to handle their account and service application. High school and university students are typical representatives of one person-one service application segment.
2. Well-to-do family subscribers ("family subscribers") — the subscribers that own several contracts, accounts and service applications. Such a subscriber would usually be the head of a family that provides its folks with mobile phones, and pays for their traffic. It would be very important for them to control costs and manage their service applications. A self-service system is regarded an important resource used to plan and allocate mobile communications budget.
3. Corporate subscribers — the subscribers that own a considerable number of service applications and utilize corporate tariffs. It is vital for responsible person to have full control of costs over service applications, assign services individually and have access to suspend/re-activate transaction for every service application.

Prioritizing service provision

“Every process at an enterprise that allows for automation should be leveraged with IT”. This principle is the driving force of CBOSS. A very illustrative implementation of this idea is the Corporate Subscribers Interface option for web-based self-servicing solution CBOSSics (Internet Customer Service). The option represents an extension of user interface of CBOSSics, allowing subscribers classified into the second and third group to access extended capabilities for managing their accounts and service applications. With this option, family and corporate subscribers can retrieve service consumption statistics and perform self-service transactions over their accounts and service applications in a mouse-click-easy and user-friendly manner, enjoying the comfort of the single Web-interface.

Consolidated tables of accounts and applications, search engines and management options for service applications, flexible reporting, access restriction, single interface and intuitive navigation between accounts and applications make Corporate ICS a unique and feature-rich tool of self-servicing for the most well-off and respected [and the most lucrative too – editor’s note] segment of subscribers.
You can configure a list of accounts or service applications available for modification for every user. Thus, you implement access restriction of both account/application- and authorized operations- levels. For example, in an enterprise hierarchy, leads of departments should not have access to the applications/accounts of the same-level units. On the other hand, all accounts/service applications remain accessible for the head of a higher-level department. 

• method of settlements;
• account balance;
• expenditure rate;
• suspension forecast;
• balance threshold for partial suspension;
• minimal account balance for reactivation.

Concerning the corresponding service applications, a user can retrieve:

• tariff name;
• suspension status;
• subscribed services.

As the number of service applications of a corporate subscriber often exceeds 20, a powerful search engine that retrieves information on service applications in a parameter-wise way comes in handy. A user is empowered to generate a consolidated table of service applications that satisfy specified search criteria [tariff, suspension, services, etc.]. For example, a consolidated table with non-suspended applications subscribed to International Roaming service. 
News for Corporate Subscribers functionality allows you to create a personalized operator-subscriber communication channel. Customer department officers post news to the Internet system without a helping hand of the technical personnel. Possessing a special attribute, the news will be available only for the users of the corporative interface of CBOSSics.
Talking about the financial control, a user is provided with the following capabilities:

• View bill totals

You can specify a period and view all bills presented within that time. Then picking an account you can drill down to see the share of its service applications in the bill total. Consider a scenario: a user retrieves a table with account numbers and bill totals for the last half of the year. Then sorts records by the bill total. Selects an account with the largest bill. Drills down to the applications to see their share in the bill, retrieving a table with applications on the account, sorted by the share in the bill. The picture becomes clear.

• View charges

For the specified list of accounts, retrieve a table with charges made since the previous billing.

• Bills, Prepayment invoices, Call itemization.

Order fax- or email- delivery of a bill, prepayment invoice, or call itemization per applications for the available accounts.

• Registered payments reference

Retrieve list of registered payments for any available account over any legitimate period. You can retrieve a distribution of registered payments over accounts.

Active self-service operations

CBOSSics envisages capabilities of active self-care transactions for corporate subscribers. For example, you can retrieve service applications using core search criteria and effect a modification of parameters for the whole group using Modify Parameters for a Group capability. Specifically, you can add/remove service, change tariff, register a request for voluntary suspension, etc.
Consider a scenario of migration to a new, more attractive tariff plan for several service applications. An authorized representative of a customer retrieves service applications that match certain criteria and initiates migration to a new plan. 
With the SMS Messaging to Multiple Recipients capability, a user can send a message to a group of subscribers. The procedure includes criteria-wise retrieval of service applications, input of text. After the message is sent, the user can get delivery status for the message to find out who actually received the message.
Consider a task of urgent notification on new time of a weekly meeting. In possible scenario, a user will specify the account number of the required department, retrieve applications, mark off absent employees and type in the message. After sending, he/she can view delivery report and decide whether to conduct the meeting.
Trouble Ticket functionality allows a subscriber to post a complaint to the Customer department of a telecom operator. Through this communication channel, the subscriber will receive an official response from the Customer department of a telecom operator. Each subscriber complaint registers a trouble ticket. Details of processing of every ticket-initiated case become available to the subscriber.

Generating Reports at Subscriber Hands

A number of solutions available from CBOSS [CBOSSrep, CBOSSudr] provide feature-rich capabilities for building reports, capitalizing on the wealth of data accumulated in the database of an operator. Telecom operators have full access to the analytic reports used in everyday and strategic planning and decision-making. Subscribers, on the other hand, usually have no access to full information pertaining to their account, presented in the analysis-ready way. Such reports, however, is an option in self-service that subscribers value. CBOSS consistently introduces new functionalities to expose account information through web-interface.
Additional email-delivered reports that become available to a corporate subscriber can include standard CBOSS reports [total charges for telephony services: international, roaming traffic] as well as custom reports, created by an operator.
For example, call itemization for specified applications listing info related to rendered services is presented in a flat file can be easily imported to a spreadsheet viewer like MS Excel, Lotus 1-2-3 or some specialized application at the customer side. With source data providing comprehensive details about applications, services and charges a subscriber can pick a tool of his choice to carry out analytical tasks of presenting consolidated financial reports.
Dealing with accounts and service applications, a subscriber can use charts/diagrams to add visualization to reports. Consider a scenario, when using the data of the bill drawn for half-year period, you can produce a chart that visualize a per-application share in the total. You can perform all kind of analytic research with the information to work out an optimal budget for the telecom services.
A subscriber can benefit from service/application over time and suspension/application over time distribution charts.  Comparing these distributions, you can decide whether a service is popular/not demanded, and make a cost-based decision, for example, whether to include a service in a permanent package or subscribe it on-demand. 

From E-self-service to INET service platform

We think that a self-service customer care solution, like CBOSSics, should evolve and grow functionalities and at some moment represent more than a multitude of modules that provide feature-rich capabilities for subscriber self-service over the Internet. Rather it is considered a universal platform of INET-services.

Currently, CBOSSics implements dozens of different components that feature the following distinguishing benefits:

• Single session: to access the full range of services, no additional subscriber authorization is required;
• Single interface: for end-users all services become presented through a portal module, with single interface and business logic;
• Single statistics: embedded utility responsible for collection of statistics allows you to trace core routes a user takes inside the portal, build a popularity rating for pages, assess time of visits;
• Access restriction: a fully-fledged integration with CBOSS billing enables you to make portal accessible only to subscribers of an operator, while personalizing offerings with services that are available for an individual user;
• Power of rating: available capabilities envisage flexible, individual, business-sensitive approach to servicing through one-time and periodic services;
• Scalability: adding new functionality does not require any changes in either system kernel or structure of the platform;
• Integration with external systems: you can embed, if required, additional functional elements into the Internet Customer Service.

Building a service portal on the basis of electronic interface of subscriber self-service is a logical evolution of a handy self-service solution to a value-added service-provisioning platform. Specifically, a VAS portal implemented on a CBOSSics platform includes a hefty package of informational and entertainment services, that are capable of promoting solution popularity, creating new revenue streams and offering next-generation Internet services.

Multimedia SMS
A fully-fledged service for handling multimedia messages offers support for different formats (Nokia Smart Messaging, Siemens, EMS), an sms-interface and group messaging option. Additional functions span viewing individual delivery status and sent messages archive.

SMS-pet
Web-interface to SMS implementation of Tamagochi, integrated to CBOSSics, brings the joy of new visualized communication with your pet and provides comprehensive pet-related statistics.
ICQ- translator
New interface to configure your parameters of CBOSSicq2sms service, another contribution to the attractive feature, available for subscribers.
WEB/SMS/WAP Chat
Web-interface to SMS-chat bridges the gap between SMS and Web users, creating a virtual community. The option can be configured to allow access to chat community exclusively to operator’s subscribers or, alternatively, to all visitors of the site.
Web Hosting
Integration with Internet billing platform from CBOSS provides a subscriber with capabilities to create personal websites and store files online. A dedicated module is responsible for administration of personal web pages, changing quotas and other hosting parameters through the web portal.
Short Numbers
Web-interface to supplementary switching center from CBOSS allows a subscriber to change parameters of short number he or she makes use of consistently, ensuring the changes are transferred to the operator’s database.
Notification Server
This component has unique range of functionalities that span different types-of-notification and methods-of-delivery. End-users can also benefit with elaborated scheduling mechanism for notifications, numerous notification templates, etc.
Address Book
Another new component that empowers users to maintain a feature-rich address book online, with contact grouping, reminders and email clients synchronization option.

At the moment, works on integration of several new modules, described below, are close to completion.
Notepad
Users manipulate notes in your notepad, add folders to your convenience, apply rich text formatting and include a note in a text message. Notepad supports Notification server options. 
Favorites
Universal storage facility for Internet shortcuts. Supports importing of Internet shortcuts from Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
Email
A single interface of CBOSSics allows users to send email messages for contacts from Address book.

Looking at this CBOSS product, we witness an evolution of a self-service interface into a universal all-in-one platform that provides subscribers with fully-fledged informational, business and entertainment services.

Capitalizing on experience

From October 2001 to October 2002 CBOSS Group completed seven installations of CBOSSics, making the total number of the solutions in operation to 24.

We would like to highlight for our readers the most active users of CBOSS Internet products. For example, Kuban-GSM, the largest operator in the southern part of Russia, has the following Internet products from CBOSS in operation:

CBOSSisp, Remote Dealer, is used to provide a wide range of customer care services, including service activation, sales of prepaid service cards, collection of payments, management of subscriber accounts, generation of reports for dealers and subscribers.
Through utilization of Remote Dealer for customer care, service providers acquire regular customers who can enjoy quality servicing without visiting CC office of the operator. The operator consistently encourages utilization of Internet systems. A service provider is entitled to a 150% premium for every subscriber, signed up through Remote Dealer.
CBOSSics, Web-based self-service application, allows subscribers to perform personal account-related actions using a PC with Internet access, instead of visiting the operator’s or service provider’s office. All transactions can be performed as a self-service, when at home, or in the office. CBOSSics proves especially useful for corporate users. Deployment of Corporate ICS is in the nearest plans of Kuban-GSM. The new solution has extended capabilities for management of applications on one account. Kuban-GSM believes such capabilities will be appreciated and valued.
CBOSSchat – SMS-chat for subscribers of cellular networks, where users can communicate using SMS, WAP-interface or Internet. SMS proves to be the most popular option.
CBOSSisp off-line, off-line dealer. Deployed by the operator in July 2002. Enables dealers to perform customer care operations without permanent connection to Internet. The solution is used exclusively for contract management and sales of prepaid service cards. Besides skipping the “always online” requirement, a dealer benefits from faster contract registration and sales of prepaid service cards. Off-line Dealer provides capabilities to check data for human-factor errors before submitting to the central database.

Surveys of Internet system utilization, conducted by the operator, show a growing popularity of Internet Customer Service with subscribers.
“Additional self-services, available to subscribers, leverage management of personal account and service application. Specifically, a subscriber can order voluntary suspension, change subscription, register a promised payment and modify bill delivery methods, etc. Entertainment services, such as chat, logo and tunes enjoy steady popularity”, comments Alexander Nazarenko, engineer of Billing and IT department of Kuban-GSM.

Evolution from E-customer care to E-billing

Going beyond self-servicing operations, electronic payments through web-interface inevitably become another challenge for Internet Customer Service solution.
Internet payment systems in Russia are on the early stage of development. Existing solutions fall into two large groups. The first envisages using credit cards while the second suggests electronic money. In any case, payments through Internet raise a lot of arguments. Benefits put forward by propagators of Internet payments find much criticism among the more skeptical researchers. Much-argued by one group and at the same time actively-propagated by other group, these benefits are:

• Comfort;
• Low cost of implementation;
• High speed of transactions;
• Security.

Although comfort of use is cited as a benefit, statistics shows that most customers are unwilling to fill in large forms and are specifically cautious about submitting credit card details over Internet.
Yet, security remains the most topical issue of Internet payments. Experience of deployment payment systems abroad shows that the majority of population (for example, in England) avoids making Internet payments until they are absolutely confident that they remain anonymous and secure.
At present, there are no solutions that would satisfy all requirements customers keep imposing, we see active development of the market worldwide and in Russia.

«The technology of bank card payments has a range of advantages, that are realized in different aspects», comments Sergey Popkov, IT Director of Volgograd-GSM. «To begin with, subscribers with bank cards enjoy the true comfort of payment. At any time, they can use their mobile terminal or Internet to effect a payment. The one-click procedure is both simple and secure. The subscriber enters the amount of payment. The system is quite secure as it allows to transfer funds only to the personal account of the subscriber.» Payments with bank cards through Internet Customer Service bring comfort to end-users and, on the other hand, are very cost-effective for the operator. Payment collection cost through a network of service providers turns to be higher. Besides, as popularity of ISC-based payments grows, they will become even more cost-effective. Sergey Popkov notes, that the company expects further development of bank card payments system. He is confident that it will find many new users who will realize its advantages.

With Internet becoming a handy and usual tool for more people, it is obvious that the demand for and popularity of Web-based solutions for customer care and self-service will grow. Increasing availability of personal account-centered services for end-users and promoting cost-effective operations that translate to prudent allocation of resources and new marketing opportunities for operators, the system exposes its benefits for subscribers as well as telecoms operators. We are confident that integration of OSS/BSS with Internet has transformed from something ‘nice to have’ to a major driver of telecom operator business.