Telefónica looks to self-service CEM

Spanish telco Telefónica has turned to self-service based CEM tools for residential European and Latin American customers, in order to ease pressure on OSS being caused by increased data consumption over broadband. Alcatel-Lucent and Accenture announced a four year strategic partnership in order to facilitate the transformation of Telefónica’s CEM processes.

According to Accenture, the simplification of Telefónica’s OSS processes and platforms will provide greater visibility of the network as well as enhanced self-help capabilities for the telco’s 100 million-plus customer base.

Accenture and Alcatel-Lucent will be providing varying platforms and systems to help facilitate Telefónica’s move towards self-service CEM, which will apparently afford customers the ability to troubleshoot and manage their digital and broadband services on online portals though devices, like smartphones, tablets and set-top boxes.

Telefónica’s Director of Operations and OSS, Juan Manuel Caro stressed the importance of customer expectation as a primary motivator in the decision to optimise OSS, BSS and CEM process. “Our customers have come to expect the highest possible customer service,” he said.  “With common processes and diagnostic tools across our entire operation, we can now address the cost-related challenges of increased demand for digital services, while providing consistent, automated, self-care capabilities to our residential customers around the world.  The complementary strengths of Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive CEM solutions and Accenture’s expertise in transformational and program management are vital to meeting our commitment to deliver increased efficiency and even better service to our customers.”

“Customer service is a key differentiator for Telefónica,” said Bhaskar Gorti, President of IP Platforms for Alcatel-Lucent. “Minimising the need for subscribers to call the help desk is a way for Telefónica to empower its subscribers and give them more control over their mobile and broadband services.”

Self-service options for telcos appear to be a bit of a hot topic this year, and certainly on the rise. In the 2015 Telecoms.com Intelligence Annual Industry Survey, 42% of respondents identified self-service as an area of OSS & BSS targeted for upgrade or deployment in the next 12 months. This constitutes an increase of 12% on last year’s survey, where 30% indicated it was a priority.