Microsperience - Latest Comments

Re: Separating the caterpillars from the butterflies – what are the core telecoms USPs?

Tushar — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 15:27:16 -0000

Nice Article!
Stumbled upon this article while searching for some data on telecom dynamics in India. Must say that it is very well written, with emphasis being on raising a debate on the USP of Telecom operators...it is not trying to preach, rather to bring out relevant points and let the viewer take a decision.

Re: CSPs could do far more to help customers avoid billshock

Ombudsmans61percent — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 17:19:27 -0000

I'm afraid Lewis Shand Smith is right off the money when it comes to answering consumer complaints about the OS:Property ombudsman.
We at the ombudsmans61percent campaign complained to Lewis Shand Smith about the ombudsman and what did Lewis do? Handed the complaint to the ombudsman who chose not to answer the complaint.
So much for accountability and transparency.

Re: Vodafone and BT say SMEs are top priority

Ashley Bowen — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 05:04:49 -0000

Interesting article Teresa. Of course, there is a varying scale of standardisation that can be applied to SMEs. Many are truly unique while others are very similar, distinguished largely on locality. Local plumbers / electricians are pretty standard as regards comms requirements, as are dental surgeries and car maintenance garages, corner shops, veterinary surgeries etc. A package of voice, broadband, cloud storage, tailored to their exact requirements with policy controls is just what they need. CSPs must get under the bonnet and really understand their businsses. With a detailed business understanding, CSPs would be well placed to top it all with appropriate SaaS to provide a total infrastructure package, not just comms - that becomes a really sticky tie-in

Re: Bandwidth crunch? Broken business model? What we have is a catering problem…

GOK — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:10:36 -0000

A well-fed high-teck worker is a happy worker. Add potato kugel to the menu....

Re: Why changing broadband provider can be #CSPhell

Plusnet PLC — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:15:53 -0000

Hi there,

A disappointing read :(

I'm sorry about the hassle you had migrating to us from Sky. It's true
that fully unbundled LLU migrations can be more problematic but rest
assured it doesn't always end this way.

It's not helped by the fact that there are effectively five parties
involved. The consumer (you), Sky, BT Openreach, BT Wholesale and us.
Each have their own systems, and whilst there are processes to ensure
things work as intended, the fact that there are multiple points of
failure does increase the potential for something to go wrong.

Needless to say, I can't really comment on the downtime without knowing
exactly what caused it. What I can comment on though is the way we
handled your call when you first contacted us.

Sorry.

Firstly for the wait getting through to us. You might want to bookmark
the following link that gives you an approximation of what our call
queues are like at any given moment - http://csc.plus.net

Also worth bearing in mind is the fact that you can raise a fault
without having to speak to anybody by using the troubleshooter at
http://faults.plus.net (this obviously relies on you having some
alternative method of accessing the internet though).

Secondly, for the apathy when you did get through to us. Whilst there is
a clause in our T's & C's about business use from a residential
account, it certainly isn't outright forbidden and in this situation I
wouldn't have expected it to have been mentioned to you at all.

"You are required to sign-up to an appropriate account type depending on
your required utilisation. Home accounts are provided for Consumers. If
you wish to use your account commercially then you must sign-up to a
Business account or Teleworker account where appropriate. For guidance,
we consider commercial use to be at a level above that which is running a
part time Business or supporting any kind of hobby. Business accounts
must be used if the account is to be used from any official Business
Premises while Teleworkers are considered to be commercial use of a
residential connection."

So, you're probably perfectly fine on your existing account type. If you
can provide me with your username or some other means of identifying
your account then I'll happily have a word with the member of staff you
spoke to to ensure they don't make a similar mistake again?

If you've paid for service that you were unable to take advantage of
following the switch to us then I'll happily credit your account too or
offer some sort of refund for the downtime. I'd just need some means of
identifying your account as above.

Hopefully we'll be able to restore some of your lost faith should you ever need to get in touch in the future?

Best regards,

Bob Pullen

Plusnet Digital Care.

Re: More Battles in the Digital War

Teresa Cottam — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:32:10 -0000

Hi Ashley I think this is a very interesting area. On the one hand developers etc want standardisation not platform proliferation; but if a commercial entity controls a platform then that becomes potentially monopolistic. Likewise, the walled garden delivers content we want to buy, but is it really for everyone - don't we want choice, including choices not offered by Apple et al?

I listened to a talk given by EU Commissioner recently and it concerned me that she was so overly concerned about any abuse of Net Neutrality, rather than letting the market operate and then intervene if necessary; there was a presumption that the carriers would do something "bad". On the other hand though, many customers are really concerned about the invasion of their privacy, hijacking of their data etc by the OTT players - things that are actually happening - and yet the EU has not acted in any substantive sense.

I am concerned that the EU, like country-level regulators - has become too susceptible to lobbying by vested interests who employ sophists to persuade governments and regulators to act or not act, according to what benefits them best. As such I don't see regulation as being customer-centric or even handed. But then who regulates the regulator? Most of this stuff is just too technical, too strategic, too big picture for the average politician to get their head around.

eg I've seen a few cases where politicians have finally said something sensible only to recant after they've been "educated" by one or another faction of the tech industry. As a consumer and as an industry analyst this annoys me enormously.

Re: Lifting revenues to the max

Teresa Cottam — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 07:11:46 -0000

Interestingly, the conversation at the PCC conference this year was very much turning to #revmax - ie more carrot and less stick; better customer experience and more revenues...

Re: Lifting revenues to the max

Teresa Cottam — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 07:10:29 -0000

Yes, we don't advocate having unwieldy numbers of products or tariffs.
Read our article on simplification to see why.
http://www.microsperience.c...

Re: Lifting revenues to the max

Peter Bowen — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:22:08 -0000

Teresa, as always a great article. Probably worth adding that CSPs also need a strategy for retiring products if they are to avoid having a large product catalogue that could prove costly to administer.

Re: Why NGMN Alliance is set to rock the BSSOSS world to the NGCOR

Osvaldo Gonsa — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:05:06 -0000

Hi Ahmed, the NGCOR requirements address what is called the north bound interface between NES and the OSS.

Re: Why NGMN Alliance is set to rock the BSSOSS world to the NGCOR

Teresa Cottam — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:52:30 -0000

Hi Osvaldo - thank you very much! I think I am just used to typing "fraud management" so much my fingers over-rode my brain. I have amended.
Teresa

Re: Why NGMN Alliance is set to rock the BSSOSS world to the NGCOR

Osvaldo Gonsa — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 07:00:03 -0000

Hi Teressa, I would like to make just a small correction to a typo in the article in the paragraph that says:
... along with those for
fraud management and inventory management....".
The project focused initially on "fault" management and not on fraud management.
Best Regards

Re: Why NGMN Alliance is set to rock the BSSOSS world to the NGCOR

Ahmed Yakout — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 06:55:22 -0000

I have a question here: What is the distinction between NGCOR work and what EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) offers to operators? Is it a different implementation of standardized interfaces or it focuses on OSS/BSS vs. network elements while EAI focuses on interfacing different OSS/BSS systems?

Re: Why NGMN Alliance is set to rock the BSSOSS world to the NGCOR

Teresa Cottam — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 06:33:12 -0000

1. Communications service provider - what we used to call operators, but now that you don't have to have a network to offer comms services then we call them CSPs instead. It covers all types of technologies and includes VoIP providers etc. If you provide comms services then you're a CSP.
2. PCC stands for policy control and charging. This encompasses the emerging space of PCRF, PCEF plus charging. However, in our view - since policy is really just business rules - you can be a PCC player without being a PCRF or PCEF vendor. This is a really hot and topical area in BSSOSS currently and if you search on Microsperience you'll see we've been tracking the topic for a while.

I'm sorry you had trouble understanding these abbreviations George, while we provide longer explanations in our more formal pieces of work, Microsperience is a blog which means it is less formal in terms of how we present things. It's more like a conversation with a community of interest. Thank you for your comments and one way of addressing this might be to provide a directory of terms, so that we don't have to keep explaining terms for people fully familiar, but help others who might not have come across the abbreviation before to understand what we're talking about? Do you think this would be helpful? I'll talk to Darran about how we could do that.

PS NEPs might be another one that needs explaining - it means Network Equipment Providers (eg Ericsson). :-)

Re: Why NGMN Alliance is set to rock the BSSOSS world to the NGCOR

Georgeofford — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:31:18 -0000

Though I get the 'jist' of the article I lose quite a lot due to two unexplained abbreviations that is assumed to be understood by everyone who reads the article! Could someone kindly explain for me what 'CSP' and 'PCC' are abbreviations for???

Re: Policy control: red hot telecoms tech that delivers a great telesperience

rke — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:57:23 -0000

"telesperience" I couldn't find that one in my teledictionary...

Re: First touch, last touch, every touch

Teresa Cottam — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:10:38 -0000

Yes I will be writing to Ofcom to complain, cos if they cannot get it right for me then what hope for the little old lady down the street? I will tell you the horrible details over a pint Peter :-)

Re: First touch, last touch, every touch

Peter Bowen — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:31:41 -0000

Teresa, you are the wrong person to have as an unhappy customer but the right person if the CSP takes on board your comments and acts on it. I will watch this space

Re: Dumb and dumber – the typical CSP approach to pricing

Peter Bowen — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:14:07 -0000

Teresa, lots of truths in what you say but the fact is not
all CSPs have a good handle on what service delivery costs and what the margins
are on each. In addition, to become more retail-like does require a level of application agility many simply don’t
have. One of the biggest threats to the
industry comes from slashing prices to such an extent that there is simply not
enough margin to invest in the future. Cost
savings and efficiencies can only do so much to off-set the damage done by tit
for tat reductions.

Re: Making the impossible possible (a fishy tale)

Teresa Cottam — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:30:12 -0000

Thanks RC for your support - we aim to challenge, inspire, explore and we love hearing the views of our readers. Of course I'm biased but I think BSSOSS is the most exciting part of telecoms!

Re: Making the impossible possible (a fishy tale)

RC — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 04:52:33 -0000

Great piece, Teresa. Telesperience consistently worth reading! Keep up the great work.

Re: CSPs could do far more to help customers avoid billshock

Teresa Cottam — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 06:14:18 -0000

Thanks Convergys for the comments. A big point for me is that customer loyalty is built on trust and we have to trust our providers to get our bills right, and to not "scalp" us. Most customers react to billshock by a) being unhappy, disgruntled, complaining b) limiting their usage. Are we in a short term business to "fleece" our customers or a longer term relationship with them to build value and loyalty - that's the question I'd like CSPs to consider. I agree that "just raising prices" is not what it's about - rather it's about finding "honest" new opportunities to add value by providing things that customers want to pay for. My current ISP charges me for data I use (I'm on "unlimited" now) but gives away the basic plan for free. Yet even though I'm paying & others aren't my traffic isn't prioritised. That means I'm paying but getting slowed down by all those on freebies. How does this make sense for either party? The current approach we have to selling services to custs is too-often lazy and old-fashioned - our industry can do much, much better. Come on CSPs, excite me with your service plans, tariffing, products and customer service...even just a little...

Re: CSPs could do far more to help customers avoid billshock

Convergys — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 09:45:49 -0000

Teresa, you're absolutely right that the bill shock issue is a problem that extends far beyond mobile into other sectors. The problem is just as pressing in broadband, where carriers continue to be squeezed by rising network infrastructure costs on the one hand and and competitive pressures on the other hand. Given the latter, merely raising prices in response is not a wise long term solution. Instead, broadband providers should look to improving the efficiency and performance of their own back office "infrastructure." This post by Convergys (http://bit.ly/rEWSYR) offers insights on smart BSS solutions that address bill shock from the broader perspective of revenue management. Already used successfully by wireless carriers to head off mobile bill shock, such solutions let the operator deliver real-time alerts to keep customers in the know on usage -- a major boost to customer satisfaction and loyalty. And beyond addressing the immediate bill shock issue, such systems often are equipped with business intelligence and predictive analytics that learn customer needs and interests, forming the basis of tailored sales offers with a higher closing ratio.

Re: The four main pillars of the telecoms customer experience

Teresa Cottam — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 07:22:17 -0000

We've had requests to reuse this diagram - you're very welcome to reuse it so long as you attribute to Telesperience. Please contact us if you need it in a particular format.

Re: Is the telecoms industry too focused on the negative?

Teresa Cottam — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 07:20:49 -0000

We've had requests to reuse the diagram shown here - you're very welcome to re-use so long as you attribute to Telesperience. If you need it in a particular format then please contact us.