More KPIs the merrier?

I often ask persons how do they measure performance and you will be surprised to hear the responses. So if you are working in a telecom or other service type industry and trying to figure out what to measure, rest assured there are probably a thousand + things that you can track but I have compiled a list of ten for my readers. So if you are looking to set up your corporate dashboard you may what to examine a few of these or drop me a line if you have some favorites and why.

Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) - Total revenue divided by the number of subscribers.

Churn Rate - Percentage of customers that discontinue their subscription to a service in a given period.

EBITDA - Net income with interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization added back

Average Wait Time (AWT) - Time customer waits before they are answered by Customer service representative

Call Drop Rate - Percentage of calls which, due to technical reasons, were disconnected before either part terminated the call.

Time to repair (TTR) - Average time required to repair service

Revenue Per Employee - Identitfies how efficiently a particular company is utilizing its employees.

Minutes of Usage - The total time, measured in minutes, that a customer uses their phone during a specified period

First-Call Resolution (FCR) - Resolving customer's need the first time they call, eliminating the need for the customer to call back.

Payback Period - The length of time required to recover the cost of an investment.

If your broadband package was only 1000Mb

Tonight I am working and a member of my family asks why is the internet so slow? Now we have a 10Mb package from a local provider and it works okay, although the last few days it was up and down. So I then asked the person how much bandwidth do they want and funny enough, I was promptly informed that they would take the maximum available. 

I was the project owner for the implementation of a 1000Mb aka "one gigabit" connection to a residential community just over a year ago in Trinidad. Whilst it was a first for T&T it was also the first such implementation in the english speaking Caribbean.

Implementation went well with a wonderful public launch etc. The reality is how many of us can afford it. Most of us can't but the speed would be nice given that you can download emails or songs in milliseconds plus get streaming 4k television content.

So what would you do with 1000Mb of bandwidth?

T&T Telecom Operators 2015

A colleague of mine who resides in the US was assisting his mother in relocating to T&T and wanted to know if T&T only had  two providers which I quickly corrected. This prompted me to develop the listing below for the benefit of readers. Enjoy!!

Landline
Columbus Communications Trinidad Limited (FLOW) 
Digicel (Trinidad and Tobago)Limited 
Massy Communications Limited 
Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) 

Broadband
Air Link Communications.
Columbus Communications Trinidad Limited (CCTL)
Digicel (Trinidad and Tobago) Limited. 
Green Dot Limited
Lisa Communications Limited
Massy Communications Limited
Open Telecom Limited
Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT)

Mobile
Digicel (Trinidad and Tobago) Limited. 
Telecommunication Services of Trinidad and Tobago (bmobile); 

Subscription TV
Air Link Communications Limited
Columbus Communications Trinidad Limited (CCTL)
DirecTV Trinidad Limited
Diversified Technologies Limited
Green Dot Limited
Independent Cable Network of Trinidad and Tobago (ICNTT)
Massy Communications Limited
Network Technologies Limited
RVR International Limited
Santa Flora Cable Network Limited
Telecommunication Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) 
TRICO Industries Limited

Why we love Contact Centers?

I recently had to call a local provider’s contact center for assistance with an issue. Well after navigating the menu and waiting for what seemed like an eternity I eventually spoke a customer service representative. The customer service experience was one of the worst I have encountered in all my years of working in customer service. Contact centers are driven by metrics such as First-call resolution (FCR), Average Waiting Time (AWT), Average Hold Time (AHT) just to name a few and these have to be monitored and adjustments made during the workday in order to meet stated customer service objectives.

But what could cause such a poor customer experience in the first place. Well, here are my top five reasons.

Agent absenteeism – More so seeing T&T is ranked fifth among countries in the world with the highest rates of workplace absenteeism.

High staff turnover – Negatively impacts quality, because every time a trained agent leaves, fewer are on hand to ensure an optimum level of service.

Little focus on first-call-resolution – Resulting in the customer having to speak to several agents regarding a single inquiry

Poor integration of IT platforms – Resulting in the employee having to access multiple systems (CRM databases, workforce management tools and sales order processing applications) to satisfy customer request thus increasing the transaction time.

Employee/Job mismatch – Wrong person for the job.

What's the longest you had to wait to speak to a customer care agent?

Iphone 7. What we need.

Apple jumped into the smartphone business back in June 29, 2007 with the introduction of the iPhone, which took approximately 74 days to sell the first million iPhones with features such as multi touch gestures and pinch to zoom. Eight years later rumors of the next generation of iPhones are all over the Internet and with a planned launch date of sometime in 2016 iPhone users can't wait.

Apple is currently ranked 2nd behind Samsung in the smartphone market. So here is a list of features that  I believe should be incorporated into the next release if Apple wants to keep me as a customer.

• Lower price
• Wireless charging
• Durable Lightning cables 
• 32 GB entry model
• Improve texture of phone to avoid slippage
• Higher resolution screen
• Higher primary and secondary camera resolution
• More RAM
• Better battery life - Functionality to close apps that are not being used automatically after a user  defined time period has lapsed
• Flexible displays

What functionality are you looking forward to in the next version of your smartphone? 

Which Smartphone do you use?

Lets buy a PBX!!!

Recently I met and old business colleague who was looking to purchase a private branch exchange (PBX) system to satisfy his communication needs at his three offices. His requirements were simple:

• A capital spend of no more than a million TT dollars
• A long list of Technical requirements

My question to him was why in this day and age was he seeking to spend a million dollars in capex to own something that in the next three years will have to be upgraded. I then asked my friend had he approached any of the providers for a hosted solution and funny enough his concern was voice quality. I indicated to him that I had implemented a 250+ seat contact centre Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) solution in 2007 which handles in excess of 10 million calls per year and to date there have been no complaints from the user or customers of the provider.

The benefits that he could derive from a hosted solution are:

· Reduced Up-front costs and installation
· Lower/No upgrade cost
· Simplified Moves, Adds & Changes
· Reduction in local call charges
· Smartphone integration for mobile employees

So my friend is now busy looking for a hosted solution. What are your plans for your telephony infrastructure?

Field Service Automation

With operators facing intense competition for customers and pressure to reduce costs one solution that can improve the service delivery channel is Field Service Automation (FSA) whilst also providing the additional benefit of boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty. If your organization suffers from disjointed communication with field service staff, over/under-scheduled resources and under-skilled technicians then you may very well want to consider an FSA solution. Note you should employ a universal technician model so that a technician can install all services and ensure that the components of the Home Area Network (HAN) reduce further truck roles when the customer request additional services.

Back to FSA

At a basic level an FSA solution should provide the following features:

• Cross-Platform Mobile Technician Application that can work offline
• Intelligent Route Optimization
• GPS enabled
• Easy to Use scheduling and dispatch (Alerts and escalation workflow)
• Service Management features for contracts, parts/inventory and assets
• Seamless integration of mobile into a back office application
• Inspection capabilities
• Service reporting and analysis capabilities (e.g.: time tracking, job status updates)

Most providers either have an FSA solution implemented or are well on the way to implementing same. However, as with anything the right tool needs to be selected for the job as there are many vendors in this space, but the key is to ensure the chosen FSA solution can integrate with your operations support systems/business support systems (OSS/BSS) to provide the stated return on investment (ROI). What product does your company use?

Customer Service woes part 2

So waiting at the mobile repair store another customer comes up and asks if the owner can repair his phone. The owner of the store asks the customer a few questions and directs the customer to a dealer as the device was still under warranty. In about 5 minutes the customer returns, this time furious and indicates that the representative at the mobile dealership stated that he would have to write down his 200 phone contacts, as they would be lost, as they could not transfer the data to the new phone. The customer decides that he will purchase the phone from the mobile repair shop and owner as promised copied the contacts in less than two minutes. (Note entire transaction would have taken about 10 minutes) 

The mobile repair operator then went on to say that 25% of one operator’s customers complain about service offered whilst in the case of another it’s around 10%. Do we have a customer service problem nationally?

Rate your provider's customer service

Customer Service woes part 1

I was at a popular mall with my daughter changing her phone and took the opportunity to listen to some of the complaints customers had with their providers. One mobile customer indicated she “couldn’t wait for Number Portability (NP) to be implemented” as she would move her entire company’s business from her current provider as the service she receives from the account executives attached to this mobile operator was nothing short of frustrating hence the reason she came to the dealer to fix her phone even though it was under warranty as she was not prepared to interact with her operator for much longer.

NP allows a mobile or fixed line user to switch from one telecoms provider to another while maintaining their current telephone number, thus eliminating the undesirable task of a customer having to notify all his or her contacts that their number has changed.


The last communication from TATT to customers on NP was in July 2014 where the authority indicated that mobile to mobile NP will commence no later than the 26th February 2015 and fixed to fixed NP will follow by 1st May 2015. Ten months later and no word from TATT. Obviously some subscribers can’t wait as once implemented providers will offer a broad range of inducements for customers to switch, as was the case in Jamaica when they launched NP in June 2015.

Will you switch once NP is implemented ?

Potential buyer for Cable and Wireless Communications (CWC)

On the heels of the recent acquisition of Columbus International by CWC, Liberty Global is seeking to acquire CWC for US $ 5.5 billion. Liberty Global presence in this region is limited to Chile and Puerto Rico but most of the operations are centered in Europe. With revenues of $18.2 billion it’s the largest international cable company.

Liberty Global has until 5:00 p.m. on November 19, 2015 to either announce a firm intention to make an offer for CWC or announce that it does not intend to make an offer.

If Liberty Global decides to purchase then the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) and other Caribbean regulators would have to review and approve before the acquisition can take place. Once Liberty Global gets regulator approval, then the next steps will be optimization of resources across territories, potential rebranding etc. Rolling forward a year from now how does this impact the local landscape and will we see a similar merger/acquisition between TSTT and Massy Communications?