incumbent telcos

serving customers better to remain the leader

And to survive, one could say. For the telecom market, liberalisation definitely means the arrival of new operators, who have no choice but to be totally customer-focused and competitive at day 1.
The comparison is not in favour of incumbent operators, who must absolutely react if they want to stay in the race…

Customer process reengineering (ordering, delivery, restoration, billing, complaints) is therefore instrumental for an incumbent telecom operator to improve its competitiveness. Yet such a program goes way beyond the basic process revamping, and must be supplemented with additional undertakings…

Process reengineering must be supported by a strong commitment from top management

Why improve customer service? Although “customer-focus culture” is a founding principle to alternative operators (they were born with it), such a culture is sometimes poorly developed within operators who still have a monopoly or who have only experienced market liberalisation recently… Opening to competition has meant an actual revolution, and it is the top management’s role to lead these changes. It has to explain the whys and wherefores, not just by focusing on the disadvantages but by also highlighting the benefits of rationalising company operations: easier relations with customers who are, at last, satisfied and loyal, less time and energy lost on malfunctions and dealing with anomalies and complaints, a more pleasant working experience for employees… And a longer-lasting operator.

New processes must be designed for the operator, and therefore by the operator…

The best method consists in describing existing processes and improving them according to the operator’s organisation and policies, only taking tips from a reference operator when possible and useful. Establishing process-based (ordering, delivery, restoration, billing) or sphere-based (fixed, mobile, data/internet) workshops and involving enough operator experts to participate is the best way of doing this. Those who use the processes on their most operational level are indeed the most suited to describe and challenge them, and to help find the improvements needed. It is the consultants’ task to lead those workshops, to describe those processes and bring out the improvements, steering if need be the discussions on the basis of their own experience. Operator problems in customer service are always the same: complexity, breakdowns, IT that do not communicate with one another or that do not cover the entire chain, manual operations, incomplete data entries during sales, lack of supervision between agencies and technical units, follow up on complaints…

Processes reengineering goes together with the implementation of a quality policy

It is useless to reengineer processes and implement them if they are not managed : improvement would only last a couple days. No process can remain efficient if it is not regularly supervised. As a result, customer processes reengineering is the best opportunity for appointing Process Managers and for initiating a Quality Management policy via regular Process Reviews and a monthly Dashboard with objectives on KPIs.

New processes implementation: the first step of a deep cultural change!

As processes cannot function by themselves (there are always men and women behind), customer processes reengineering must be the trigger that definitively puts the customer back at the heart of corporate concerns, and inverts the hierarchy pyramid to the benefit of those employees who are in direct contact with customers, as genuine company ambassadors towards them. New processes implementation is thus a crucial time which must evidence the cultural change. To achieve this, an internal project team must be set up, involving process experts, executives and specialists from the concerned departments. Each entity (agency, technical unit etc.) receives an implementation toolbox broken down specialty by specialty (sales agency reception, back office etc.) and containing prioritised improvement initiatives and implementation schedules, as well as improvement measurement indicators. A kick-off meeting sets the tune for all the team members. The project team regularly monitors implemented initiatives, while the Process Managers act their part: they analyse the indicators, report to senior management and set up any needed improvement initiatives with the field managers. For the first time, a virtuous circle has started up! And it will never stop.


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