https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2022 NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2023 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Technology Advisor 101 (TA 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • 2023 Call for Speakers
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2022 NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2023 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Technology Advisor 101 (TA 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • 2023 Call for Speakers
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Agents
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • Channel Partners Events
 Channel Futures

Telephony/UC/Collaboration


From Inside-Out: A Different Perspective on Customer Service

  • Written by Channel
  • October 31, 1998

Posted: 11/1998

From Inside-Out: A Different Perspective on Customer Service

By Spencer Perry

MIS and engineering leaders are probably the champions of TMN in most
enterprises … if any champions exist at all. The financial, marketing and executive
leadership needs to understand and support TMN deployment to make it happen and ultimately
derive the competitive benefits.

The world’s three greatest questionable truths: "The check’s in the mail,"
"Yeah, I tried it but I didn’t inhale," and, "We’ve got great customer
service!" With all due respect to the U.S. Postal Service and President Bill Clinton,
many service providers rely on the last "truth" to differentiate themselves from
the rest of the pack. But all too often the assertion rings hollow.

A well-trained call center staff and help desk is not a sure-fire formula for
successful customer service. Indeed, the traditional notion of customer
service–friendliness and responsiveness to questions and problems–must be redefined. In
today’s competitive environment, successful customer service should be defined as meeting
the customer’s service needs the first time, all the time; flawless execution of service
delivery; and no inbound calls other than sales inquiries. If a customer is calling to
report a problem, chances are he or she is about to become an ex-customer. To whip the
competition, service providers must meet or exceed customers’ expectations in every way
that they are touched: provisioning (fast and accurate), service delivery (flawless),
maintenance (never see it), customer contact (never need it for anything but an add-on)
and billing (timely, accurate and understandable).

icon.gif (618 bytes)
Image: The TMN Model

These functions typically involve various network elements (such as switches, voice
mail platforms and digital cross-connects) and management systems (such as customer care,
billing and operations support systems, or OSS). The data and information on each customer
from these disparate elements and systems must be able to pass between and among one
another to validate settings or to spot and fix (or notify operations of) problems before
they reach the customer.

In short, any and every action that affects a customer’s service should involve a
"closed loop" to ensure the customer request is met. Take the simple example of
a customer’s request for voice mail service. The request, logged into the customer care
platform, should trigger a process that ensures the billing system and voice mail platform
are synchronized. They should talk to each other and agree that they each have done their
job to satisfy the customer’s request. Finally, the agreement should be fed back into the
customer care system for management status update. Paradoxi-cally, this is the only kind
of system that allows a customer care representative to know truly what’s happening with
the order or service. Thus, the capability that allows the representative to know in real
time what’s going on with a customer is the same system that ensures the problem never
reaches the customer in the first place.

TMN–The Road to the Service Holy Grail

This capability was developed more than six years ago as an operating model called the
Telecommuni-cations Management Network (TMN). (See diagram on page 152.) The model defines
an operational architecture and set of protocols in which management data from various
platforms and devices (known as network elements) is shared with OSS and network
management systems. From there, data is processed into information and is integrated into
a service management system that, in turn, becomes information that is fed in real time
into the business’ financial system. In theory, when fully deployed, a bad card in a 5ESS
that interrupted service would result in an alarm on the chief financial officer’s (CFO’s)
computer, reporting the problem in terms of lost revenue per minute using variables such
as customers served by the network element, customer calling patterns, usage data, rate
data and others.

The degree of automation built into provisioning and service management systems is
inversely proportional to the amount of highly trained and expensive technical resources
needed to operate the business.

To date, no service provider (that I’m aware of) has come close to fully deploying TMN.
It is incredibly expensive and exceedingly difficult to deploy. Incumbent providers are in
the worse position to deploy TMN because they have to support ancient legacy systems that
are typically mainframe-based and written in archaic code. Despite the enormous financial
and operational challenges, nascent service providers should embrace the model and develop
a strategy to incorporate TMN into their growing infrastructure. There are, however,
relatively low-cost deployment strategies that providers may pursue, depending on their
individual circumstances. Perhaps the most daunting challenge lies within the management
ranks of the service provider. Managers of information systems (MIS) and engineering
leaders probably are the champions of TMN in most enterprises … if any champions exist.
The financial, marketing and executive leadership needs to understand and support TMN
deployment to make it happen and ultimately derive the competitive benefits.

The Case for CLEC TMN Deployment

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has attracted many long distance service providers
into the $100 billion local exchange market. Though various strategies have been pursued
to succeed in this market, one fact is inescapable: competitive local exchange carriers
(CLECs) must quickly establish solid reputations by delivering service that is at least
equal in quality and reliability to that of the incumbent LECs (ILECs) they seek to
compete against. This is a tough goal given the underlying economic foundations of
competing against the ILECs.

The ILEC networks were built over decades of rate-of-return regulation in which costs
to ensure redundancy and high service levels were guaranteed to be recoverable. The ILEC’s
high-level service standards were partly a function of world-class switch and other
network element design. These standards also were a result of creating service and network
management processes that were every bit as robust as the switches and other network
elements in the service delivery chain. Every ILEC operates today on the base of
"gold-plated" network and operations, administration and maintenance (OAM)
systems. This legacy has created the market’s high-performance expectations of all service
providers and low tolerance for even minor failure.

The underlying cost structure for resale of ILEC services allows little margin for
error in building and operating a network. The early days of feature group A (FGA) and
feature group B (FGB) interexchange competition saw 55 percent discounts in network
access. This allowed for healthy margins while pursuing aggressive pricing strategies. In
contrast, local resale discounts of 17 percent to 22 percent are forcing service providers
to pursue (lucrative) niche opportunities while simultaneously outperforming the ILECs in
the service business–at incremental costs far below the ILECs’.

The capital requirements to acquire network elements have lessened due to switch and
platform vendors’ recognition of the demand for lower-cost solutions to traditional
offerings. The facility and operational costs, however, will not support aggressive
pricing strategies. Customer-focused service strategies have great potential to develop
significant differentiation with incumbent providers.

Customer-Focused Service

The traditional operating model is "network-focused." Under this model, the
switch and facilities are managed for optimum performance with "aggregate
traffic" serving as the client. While the aggregate is served, information about
individual customers and their experiences are lost. A "customer-focused"
provider is able to capture and analyze pertinent information at the customer level …
information that correlates with purchase and retention decisions. To be of any value, the
information must be immediate and actionable and, above all, focused on the individual
customer rather than an aggregate customer profile. After all, no customer is
"average."

Spencer Perry
is president of SLP Associates, a Redmond, Wash., consulting firm to the CLEC industry. He
can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

Tags: Agents Telephony/UC/Collaboration

Most Recent


  • Top 20
    Top 20 Stories in January: Avaya, Microsoft, IBM, AWS, Datto, More Layoffs
    ChatGPT cracks our list for the first time. We've also got new hires and security training. But what was No. 1?
  • Lawsuit
    Bondholders File Lawsuit Against Avaya for $125 Million
    They accuse the company of misleading investors.
  • m&a blocks
    Bluewave Buys SinglePoint from Soterra Capital, Bulks Up Louisville Footprint
    Soterra Capital, which bought SinglePoint in 2016, is keeping equity in the combined company.
  • uc
    BYOC and Partnering for Unified Communications Success: A Winning Strategy for Service Provider Growth
    Service providers can enter cloud telephony market with external voice capabilities for UCaaS platforms.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • Sign a Contract
    Unisys Adds Managed UCaaS with $153 Million Unify Square Acquisition
  • Fortune 500 2021 logo
    AT&T, Microsoft, Verizon, More Tech, Telco Companies Make Latest Fortune 500
  • Telephone poles and lines
    Granite Buys Epik: Score One for Legacy Telecom
  • New
    Martello Technologies Group Targets MSPs, VARs with New Partner Program

Upcoming Events

View all

Channel Partners Conference & Expo

May 1, 2023 - May 4, 2023

Channel Partners Europe

June 13, 2023 - June 14, 2023

Channel Futures Leadership Summit

October 30, 2023 - November 2, 2023

Galleries

View all

Abundant IoT, Advisors Tackle the eIoT Opportunity

February 6, 2023

Top 20 Stories in January: Avaya, Microsoft, IBM, AWS, Datto, More Layoffs

February 6, 2023

Cloud Computing News: Broadcom-VMware, Google-Anthropic, Red Hat, More

February 6, 2023

Industry Perspectives

View all

The Software Patching Problem – Solved

February 3, 2023

How to Break Through the Growth Ceiling

February 1, 2023

5 Things to Look for in a UC Partner

January 31, 2023

Webinars

View all

Next-Generation MSP Platform: The Building Blocks for Your Business

February 15, 2023

The SMB Opportunity: How to Sell and Service the SMB Market, Capture Customers and Expand Your Business

February 23, 2023

How To Boost Your Business With White-Label UCaaS

February 28, 2023

White Papers

View all

6 UCaaS Reseller Challenges and How Real World Businesses Solved Them

February 1, 2023

Frost Radar: North American UCaaS Market, 2022

February 1, 2023

The Complete Guide to White-Label UCaaS for Reseller Success

February 1, 2023

Channel Futures TV

View all

Coffee with Craig and James Episode 117: Cato Networks, Video Killed the Podcast Stars

Retired Astronaut Capt. Scott Kelly Previews His CP Expo Keynote

December 21, 2022

Fusion Connect Eyes Future with Intrado UC, Managed Network Customers

September 23, 2022

RingCentral Focused on Hybrid Work, Microsoft Teams, Other Integrations

September 23, 2022

Twitter

ChannelFutures

.@AbundantIoT is putting more focus on the enterprise, CEO Vince Bradley tells Channel Futures.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

February 7, 2023
ChannelFutures

January's #topstories in channel include @Avaya @GTTComm @Broadcom @awscloud @citrix @Salesforce @Datto… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

February 6, 2023
ChannelFutures

.@Acronis announces #CyberFit partner program updates. dlvr.it/Sj2FZQ https://t.co/z7lRdIRo9R

February 6, 2023
ChannelFutures

More #Avaya trouble: Lawsuit against company by bondholders claims "massive fraud." dlvr.it/Sj2DZT https://t.co/4Q1E7JAXXf

February 6, 2023
ChannelFutures

.@DellTech adds new #APEX delivery options for #delltechnologies partners. dlvr.it/Sj29c6 https://t.co/3qEEYpnOBX

February 6, 2023
ChannelFutures

There are some familiar names in @coxbusiness and @Rapid_Scales recent partner awards. dlvr.it/Sj1zm6 https://t.co/0BuGwBrnvM

February 6, 2023
ChannelFutures

RT @Channel_Expo: We know your mind is on the #BigGame this week, but don't take your eye off the ball! #EarlyBird rates for #CPExpo & #MSP…

February 6, 2023
ChannelFutures

Learn about @bluewavetg's latest deal. dlvr.it/Sj1wrV https://t.co/NCdmJ4OFkf

February 6, 2023

MSP 501

The industry's largest and most comprehensive partner awards program.

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Galleries

Educational slide shows and images from live events.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Events
  • Telecoms.com
  • MSP 501
  • Black Hat
  • IoT World Today
  • Omdia

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2023 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X