Every so often, I receive interesting survey results, which I feel compelled to share with you, the readers of my blog. In this particular case, the subject is triple play deployment, and the source of the information is a survey conducted over the course of a recent Supportsoft executive briefing series.

Responding to the survey, 98% of those polled agreed that customer service represents a key competitive advantage for successfully acquiring and retaining customers for triple play services. However, 90% of service providers responding to the survey acknowledge that delivery of triple play services (broadband, VoIP, and IPTV) raised significant customer service challenges.

This dilemma brings into focus the need for service automation solutions to help deal with the added complexity of triple play services. Almost 100% agree that service automation is essential to profitably acquiring new triple play customers. And key to a successful service automation strategy is having a network-view and a customer premises-view into customer service problems, with unanimous agreement that both views are necessary to effectively diagnose and resolve customer problems.

“European service providers are rapidly deploying triple play services — in addition to further driving broadband adoption, with IPTV and VoIP rollouts underway in several countries. We know from earlier research studies that 81% of European customers prefer to receive all three services from one provider,” said Chris Grejtak, senior vice president of products and marketing at SupportSoft.

The survey was conducted at three briefings held by SupportSoft in Frankfurt, London, and Paris.