Getting Started: Build Customer Service Into Your Systems

Telecommunication customers are a finicky bunch; they expect low prices, great customer service, uninterrupted service and knowledgeable staff. They come to the competitive carrier expecting better service and offerings than they received from their previous provider.

The CLEC's challenge is to meet these expectations.  We believe that the way a new CLEC can meet that challenge is to build customer service into their internal systems from the very beginning.

How do you do that? Over the next few months we’ll address different aspects of providing customer satisfaction. This installment will look at initial pre-customer activities.

What Do Customers Want?
CLEC customers you obtain fit into three common types:

1.     Disgruntled customers look to any alternative that might serve them better than their current providers.

2.     Experimenting customers like to try the new technology or service. They see themselves as trailblazers.

3.     Risky customers have a difficulty in obtaining service.

Each of these customer types will accept different levels of service delivery and response. Your challenge is to make sure all these disparate customer needs are met.  True customer satisfaction requires:

• Robust product set
• Knowledgeable sales staff
• Timely install intervals
• Correct service installation
• Correct billing
• Timely and efficient service upgrades and changes

If you meet these requirements, your customers will be satisfied.

Building In Customer Satisfaction From The Ground Up
Unfortunately, many CLECs fail to recognize the true need for customer satisfaction as they build their company. They get tangled in the process of creating a company and often the details that lead to customer satisfaction get lost during the creation process.

One of the main problems facing a new CLEC is proper documentation of processes and procedures. This sounds boring, perhaps, but it is at the heart of building customer service into your company from the very beginning, even before you have your first customer.

How can you install a customer if you don’t have the procedures and processes documented to handle the data elements required to provide service? How do you initiate billing if you don’t document how you will receive and process information that the customer provides and properly provision the customer's services?

That's why process documentation is critical. Each operational area must develop a comprehensive series of process flows, their internal process activities, and detail how they interface with internal and external entities, such as departments in your company, suppliers and customers.

A successful company cannot fly by the seat of its pants and hope everything falls into place. Too often, a strong individual will attempt to drive an operation without fully documenting how the processes within the operation should operate. This leads to a fragmented operation and ultimately poor customer service.

Make Sure Support Systems Fit
Many new telecommunications companies buy off-the-shelf operating support systems (OSS).  However, when buying such systems, the organization first must know how their processes and interfaces interact.  That requires the appropriate documentation. 

That, in turn, will allow them to make valid business decisions about the purchase of an OSS.  Creating the proper process documentation allows the business to manage the interface needs of the OSS applications within individual departments, the organization as a whole and with external companies.

All companies say they desire customer satisfaction, but few include it as part of their operational processes. Too often, that's because the effort of creating process and procedural documentation focuses on the process itself, not on how the process relates customers. This failure to bring the customer interaction into the equation often causes inexcusable service problems.

Every company requires a foundation from which to grow. The factual documentation of procedures and processes, including the interaction between departments, suppliers and customers, provides the structural steel of that foundation.  Once the foundation is built, it becomes easier to design the structure and make future modifications -- and to properly serve your customers.

Jim Marsh is a senior consultant for The Management Network Group, a telecom consulting organization.  Jim has worked in telecom for 15 years and is an expert in revenue assurance, risk management and fraud. Jim speaks and writes on improving operational systems and functions to improve bottom lines.