Customer Experience

Helping Customers Help Themselves: The Era of Self-Service

Edited By Peter Bernstein on December 8, 2014

By: Jessica Verbruggen, Integrated Marketing Assistant at Alcatel-Lucent Motive

While the Internet and all of the technologies that have stemmed from its creation have served to make our lives easier in many ways, they can also be very confusing and frustrating at times. In these times, people have traditionally turned to call centers to get customer support. In today’s increasingly digitized world though, fewer people are relying on this form of assisted service. Contacting a call center tends to be time consuming and, often times, frustrating. Traditional customer support is not very well-suited to handling the millions of very specific questions that arise during device usage every day. Enter mobile self-service.

There are few areas of our economy today that haven't been touched by the growing self-service industry. Many, it seems, prefer to resolve their issues themselves. People relish the ability to “do it themselves” because it affords them a certain level of control over their devices and services that was previously not attainable.

Posted in A New Conversation Experience, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Customer Care, Customer Experience, Mobile Marketing, Next-Generation Communications, VoLTE, WebRTC, Wireless

Addressing the threat from OTT voice apps with VoLTE

Edited By Peter Bernstein on December 1, 2014

By: Josee Loudiadis, Director of Network Intelligence, Alcatel-Lucent

Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and rich communications services can help mobile service providers reclaim market share being lost to over-the-top (OTT) applications.

Voice and text revenues are declining as mobile service providers (MSPs) face an unprecedented challenge from OTT communication apps such as Facebook, Instagram, and lesser known entrants, including WhatsApp and LINE. At first, MSPs enjoyed net gains because the use of these apps had generated significant data revenue. But times have changed. While still a source of revenue, these apps have begun to erode MSP’s native voice and messaging revenue.

To illustrate, let’s look at WhatsApp, who recently debuted its business model for mobile virtual network operators. In this model, WhatsApp (now owned by Facebook) provides voice and messaging services while leasing wireless services from a mobile operator. This means that MSPs are left with price per bit as their sole differentiator.

Posted in A New Conversation Experience, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Customer Experience, LTE, Next-Generation Communications, VoLTE, Wireless

LTE Small Cells Help Public Transport Users Stay Informed in Real-time

Edited By Peter Bernstein on December 1, 2014

By: Thierry Sens, Marketing Director Transportation Segment Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent

It’s raining. It’s Monday morning. And the bus hasn’t turned up.

It’s a story experienced all the time in cities across the world, and is a major challenge for transit operators in the battle for passengers. When you are wet through and the bus still hasn’t come around the corner, taking the car always feels like the better option.

However, telecommunications technology is helping to readdress this balance. Research has shown that use of mobile apps which show up-to-date and accurate journey information is improving journey experience. Passengers can plan their journey better meaning the wait for the bus is no longer such a drag.

Posted in A New Conversation Experience, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Customer Experience, LTE, Mobile Data, Next-Generation Communications, Small Cells, Wireless

IP Video: A Whirlwind of Innovation

Edited By Peter Bernstein on October 28, 2014

By: Roland Mestric, Director, Video Solutions Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent

Before the iPhone, the world of TV was relatively simple. Linear TV programs were delivered to the TV set over the air or to its set-top box (STB), which was directly tied to the cable coax, the home gateway or the satellite dish.

Now everything has changed.

Video-enabled, IP-connected devices with ever-greater screen resolution are flooding the market. Tablets, smartphones and smart TVs are running on many flavours of operating systems. All use different protocols, formats and standards. With these devices, end users have many options to watch video. These include being attached to the service provider’s managed network, or being directly connected to the Internet and consuming ‘over-the-top’ content. Moreover, end users want to watch their favorite content on demand; they no longer want to be restricted to linear programing. This adds yet another level of complexity to this whirlwind of change.

Covering all IP video options results in countless protocols, proliferating standards and loads of acronyms. Even industry watchers can find the rapidly evolving world of IP video confusing. That’s why I created this IP video streaming infographic.

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Broadband, Cloud, Customer Experience, Next-Generation Communications, Video

The New Facet of Customer Experience Management - Field Service 2.0

Edited By Peter Bernstein on October 27, 2014

By: Rhodo Odysseos, Product/Solution Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent, and Jess Verbruggen, Motive Integrated Marketing Assistant, Alcatel-Lucent

Traditionally, communications service providers (CSPs) have treated the field service aspect of their organization as a cost center. Field technicians engaged in maintenance activities were simply a part of the cost of doing business. More recently, the communications industry in general and the field service arena in particular, has been disrupted by immense changes in the customer profile, service expectations, and behaviors.

Field service is often the only face of the company that a customer will ever see, so it’s not a surprise that CSPs are striving to make a positive impact on customers in this realm. Achieving full potential in field service saves CSPs a lot of time and money. Productivity and efficiency reviews targeted at field service operations, done correctly, can reinforce other areas of the business by increasing customer satisfaction and improving safety and quality.

Posted in A New Conversation Experience, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Customer Care, Customer Experience, Mobile Data, Next-Generation Communications, Wireless

Big Data for Better Operations - The Use of Analytics in the Connected Home

Edited By Peter Bernstein on September 22, 2014

By: Alan Marks, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive Customer Experience Solutions

The increasingly competitive broadband market has service providers facing new challenges as they deliver services to today’s Internet-connected home. One challenge is delivering technical support for the rapidly increasing number of Internet-connected devices in the home. Consumers are now connecting gaming consoles, smart phones, tablets and other devices to their residential gateway, and their broadband Internet service. In light of this increasingly complex and dynamic technological landscape, it is no surprise that service providers have turned to analytics to better understand their customers’ needs.

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Analytics, Big Data, Cable MSOs, Customer Experience, Next-Generation Communications

The Cat Video Index: A Simple View of Data Costs

Edited By Peter Bernstein on September 15, 2014

By: Andy Porter, Product Manager in the Payment, Policy and Charging department at Alcatel-Lucent

The Economist has its famous Big Mac index for comparing buying power across countries. But I wanted an index that focuses on the cost of mobile data usage. That meant I had to find a data-charging equivalent of the Big Mac. I needed an item that crosses cultural boundaries, is universally understood and is available worldwide.

I considered many possibilities. But the answer arrived when I saw my daughter laughing at a video of a cat playing a piano. Obviously, the mobile data equivalent of the Big Mac is the YouTube video. It’s a universally available service that is easily measured in quantitative terms, making it ideal for comparing mobile data costs.

In honor of my daughter, I chose the classic “piano-playing cat” as the baseline video. And by the way, this cat video has been viewed over 34 million times, proving its suitability as a baseline.

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Broadband, Customer Experience, Mobile Data, Mobile Marketing, Next-Generation Communications, Wireless

DLNA CVP-2 Will Make Sharing Pay TV Much Easier

Edited By Peter Bernstein on August 19, 2014

By: Mae Kowalke, TMCnet.com Contributor

There are two kinds of technology consumers: Those who revel in the technology, and those who just want the benefits of the technology without having to think about tech itself.

While I definitely am someone who enjoys the technological innovation as much as the results of that innovation, most consumers are not. They just want technology that works, i.e., where the proof of the viability of next generation capabilities can be summed up as “seeing is believing.”

One example of this is the increasing popularity of multiscreen entertainment as delivered over a leading-edge multiscreen video platform such as the Alcatel-Lucent one that has become with service providers around the world. Consumers don’t want to have to fiddle with their computer or TV to get their content from one device to the next. They just want it to work; consumers want to be able to walk around the house with their shows or take their entertainment out into the world via their smartphone, not unlike we’ve been able to do with hardbound books for generations.

Posted in A New Conversation Experience, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Broadband, Cable MSOs, Customer Experience, Next-Generation Communications, Video

Motive Helps Global Service Provider Know When to Upgrade Customers to Ultra-Broadband

Edited By Peter Bernstein on August 12, 2014

By: Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

As one of the world’s largest network service providers, Norway’s Telenor must constantly upgrade its systems to stay on top. The company runs networks in 12 countries and operations in 29 more, and it has a market capitalization of roughly $38 billion. But it must keep its operations modern to maintain its position, so last year the company decided to upgrade its access network so it could deliver ultra-broadband services and improve the customer experience with ADSL2+ and VDSL2 technology.

Deployment of the upgrade currently is underway, and Telenor expects to have its 500,000 DSL lines migrated to the new VDSL2 platform by 2015, according to a recent case study, Telenor Achieves Competitive Advantage In Ultra-Broadband, on the rollout.

To efficiently deliver ultra-broadband services, however, Telenor needed a way to determine which of its existing DSL lines could be upgraded to VDSL2 without issue, and which ones needed additional infrastructure changes.

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Broadband, Customer Experience, DSL, Fixed Networks, Next-Generation Communications, VDSL2

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