Q&A

Cell C Sees All

>Like many service providers, South Af- service and a new product is launched giving
rica’s Cell C is looking for ways to bal- customers free calls, if they have a certain bal-
ance the cost savings of customer self- ance, then [we] expect higher volumes on this
service without turning its subscriber service, and accordingly a potential change in ex-
base into an external quality-assurance team. perience. This would require an understanding of
Blue Hadlow, senior manager of enterprise in- the current experience if it is to be maintained.
tegration applications at Cell C, talks about the Customer experience management (CEM)
issues that his company faces when looking for is a process that starts with measuring, then
insights into what customers are experiencing. analyzing, planning, changing and then mea-
suring again. Automated systems can provide
Q: What self-service options do Cell C customers extremely valuable insight into the measuring
currently have? and analysis of CEM, but human intervention is
Hadlow: Cell C has opted for the deployment required to make sure the correct action plans
of IVR-based self service using our service-ori- are formulated and executed to maintain that
ented architecture (SOA). As such, IVR is but experience.
one of many channels to access these re-usable
services, and we will be proliferating them to How does Cell C ensure that it understands what _{other access channels [such as the] Web, USSD,} Q:_{customers are experiencing?}
WAP and WIG in [the] future. This is a critical ele- Hadlow: The first step is to measure. Due to
ment of ensuring a consistent customer experi- the use of SOA, Cell C has the ability to measure
ence regardless of the access channel chosen. actual services (complex composite processes)
We estimate that 60 to 70 percent of our cus- at the entry and exit points. These in turn might
tomer care calls should be handled by our self- be referencing simpler (fine-grained services) at
service infrastructure in the near future. This of various levels in the architecture.
course does depend on the type of services we At the fine-grained level, CA Wily is used
offer via these channels. This must be flexible, extensively to provide insight into the integra-
and we need to respond to changing customer tion platforms deployed within Cell C. Various
needs as the trends change. dashboards have been built for each service
that provide not only an overview of each of
Q:How can service providers understand what the fine-grained services relevant to a com-
their customers are really experiencing with posite service, but [also] the detail required to
self-service systems? measure/trace the components at the lowest
Hadlow: The first step is to understand their levels. We also have the ability to detect reoc-
experience when using the existing services of- curring errors.
fered. If a customer is using a balance-enquiry

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