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Asia Pacific InTouch 2011: Proactive customer service is the way for service providers to stay relevant
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by Jeff Barak
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In the age of the cloud, proactive customer service is the way for service providers to remain relevant and keep their customers, according to Mike Losier, senior vice president at Liberty Global.
Speaking at the Amdocs Asia Pacific InTouch Business Forum 2011 at the Ritz-Carlton, Singapore, Mr. Losier said Apple’s new cloud offering was going to be a game changer in terms of how the cloud works as Apple would eventually monetize this service.
And if service providers were going to succeed in selling bundled packages to their subscribers and not just connectivity to the Internet so they can access the cloud, service providers needed to find ways to proactively serve their customers, he said.
“We have to train our techs to go into a house and solve everything, not just the set-top box,” said Mr. Losier, whose company has 18 million customers in 14 countries, making it the largest cable provider outside of the United States.
Mr. Losier also noted that the new Amdocs Connected Home solution provided more opportunities for “sticky services” that would keep subscribers with their service providers for a longer period of time.
In terms of Global Liberty’s strategy for improving their customer experience, Mr. Losier said the company was preparing to launch a new user interface which would meet the standards set by Apple for “fun” interfaces. “This new interface will be amazing,” he said. “It will bring both regular content and content from the Internet that’s relevant to you.”
In a panel on innovation, Loo Cheng Chuan, the acting chief executive officer of SingTel Digital Media, agreed that the next great wave in innovation in telecommunications was going to center on the user interface. He said SingTel was spending a lot of time on this issue because in a commoditized market, the user experience will become the greatest differentiator for service providers.
Mr. Loo also pointed to two other major trends in innovation: the fifth screen and sixth sense. With tablets being the fourth screen, the fifth screen will be the car screen. “We’re not talking just navigation,” the senior SingTel executive stressed. “We’re talking about an in-car app store, where you’ll have things like voice-activated Twitter.” In terms of the sixth sense, Mr. Loo said he was referring to predictive and personalization engines.
Looking forward to Amdocs’ new releases, Rebecca Prudhomme, vice president for product and solutions marketing, said there were two key anchors to the company’s new solutions: smart networks and customer experience to the power of X.
In the autumn, Amdocs plans to release new customer management solution, Ms. Prudhomme said, while a new OSS 8.2 release is planned for next year, which will focus on a converged interaction platform.
The Amdocs Asia Pacific InTouch Business Forum is an annual event which provides Amdocs customers in the Asia Pacific region the opportunity to network with their peers, share industry best practices and meet with Amdocs experts to discuss specific business challenges and opportunities as well as discuss Amdocs' latest though leadership. |
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