Telecom Carrier Case Study

Client: An upcoming telecom wholesale carrier company which grew 92% in first 12 months and increased customer and vendor base by 62% over last 36 months

 

THE IDEA

To meet the support demands of an increasing member base while significantly reducing per member support costs.

 

THE CLIENT BEFORE

The client was struggling to support its ever-increasing user base that was at 50000 minutes and later in six months scaled to over 600,000 minutes a day worldwide, a 10 time growth rate. The members and strong competitive forces were driving the client to maintain a 24x7x365 service / support window with multiple delivery channels. The then existent 8x5 service window was clearly not enough to support a global support function. With average hours increasing with the number of members, the only way they could maintain a healthy customer satisfaction index while improving their bottom line was to partner with an offshore company that demonstrated experience in meeting scalability challenges.

 

THE RETURN

1. Reduced support costs per member by almost 70% with Shift Ahead’s offshore delivery model

2. Improved customer satisfaction across all customer touch points by focusing on quality of delivery

3. Considerable improvement in member retention with improved service levels

4. Processes re-engineered to reduce headcount and improve productivity

5. Allowed greater company focus on new member acquisition and on product enhancements

6. Faster rollout of new service lines across geographies

7. Opportunity to consolidate, re-engineer, rationalize and improve processes efficiency for improving service levels and increasing productivity

 

HOW SHIFT AHEAD HELPED

An experienced team from Shift Ahead completed the mission critical tasks of mapping, adapting and migrating the processes to its offshore centers at in less than one month.

 

SKILL SETS

1. Cisco Routers 1700/1800/2500/3600/
   5400/7200, Layer 2 & Layer 3 Switches.

2. IP Phones, Audio Codes, Mediant 1000 & 2000, Polycom, ZyXEL, DUV & Cisco voice Gateway.

3. SBC-NexTone, Acme and SIP Server NEXGE.

4. TDM over Cisco-5400mx-SDP and Veraz Switch.

5. SS7, SIP, H.323, RTP, SDP, SNMP.

 

This happened through the thorough and systematic process re-engineering led to the development of exhaustive process documentation. A custom resource and training plan was created to identify the skill sets and develop the "ideal" customer service representative profile.

 

The helpdesk & Engineering support function went live in a month’s time and stabilized with desired results, within two months of sustained operations. The support people now also manage the knowledge base for quicker response delivery.

 

Shift Ahead’s operations team is responsible for handling customer as well as the Engineering support services 24x7x365, maintaining the desired service levels, resource planning and following a structured quality improvement plan. Shift Ahead has taken various initiatives to improve the member/customer satisfaction index, average speed of answer, first call resolution and improve client /vendor relationship.

 

Shift Ahead has been supporting the following processes for the client:

1. Customer / Technical Support for its VOIP customers (Retail as well as wholesale)

2. Handling Billing Queries

3. Dispute Resolution

4. Member Account Services

5. Client Retention

6. Network Performance Monitoring and Updation

 

An experienced team from Shift Ahead completed the mission critical tasks of mapping, adapting and adapting the required process to India.

 

Costs & Savings

1. The initial cost of running this operation in the US got reduced by 70% after Shift Ahead took over.

2. With the savings put on Marketing business grew 10-fold in a span of 6 months