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Good Call Fielding Can Improve Odds of Executing Triple Play

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TMCnews Featured Article


February 01, 2007

Good Call Fielding Can Improve Odds of Executing Triple Play

By Kim Garner, Vice President, Product Marketing


Cable operators bring magic into subscribers’ homes. They put crystalline images on the TV, blazing speed in the browser and pin-drop sound on the phone. But cable operators routinely miss the mark when they take an inbound call from a possible subscriber.

 
In too many cases, customer service agents don’t know who is calling, where they live, what services these callers have, or what services are available to their neighborhood. Customer service agents can spend 15 minutes selling a service only to find out that, say, cable Internet doesn’t yet reach that subscriber’s block. Cancel that triple play; you’ve dropped the ball.
 
Not only has the cable operator invested a lot of time into a sale that was dead from the get-go, the subscriber has walked away from the conversation daunted by the complexity of cable services and with his faith in the company shaken.
 
Fortunately, a few savvy cable operators are starting to fix the problem. Here’s what they’re doing:
 
They’re obtaining next-generation CRM service. Data providers exist today that can identify, in great detail, who’s calling in at the instant the connection is made. Better services instantly provide full name of the caller, plus full address and even good guesses on their purchasing power. These on-demand services can supply all this detail even when a caller is using a VoIP phone.
 
Cable operators are integrating CRM with their Homes Passed database. If you’re not familiar with the term, 'homes passed' refers to the cable operator’s virtual map of every home or business in its service area, whether it’s a subscriber or not. It’s the authoritative source on which services are available in which neighborhoods, and which services are switched on at each stop.
 
If done correctly, integrating CRM with the homes passed database lets customer service operators take a call and immediately know whom they’re talking to, what that subscriber currently has for active service, roughly how much that subscriber can spend, and which service the subscriber is most likely to buy next. More importantly, the same information can be available for non-subscribers in the cable operator’s footprint. With this information, the call can go smoothly and intelligently, dramatically increasing revenue per subscriber and increasing closing rates while reducing average call duration.
 
There are many other benefits of integrating caller data with the homes passed database.
 
For example, the same CRM services that identify callers can route them to special agents based on the subscribers’ service area, spending power or existing service mix.
 
Cable operators can automatically assemble records of inbound product queries and use the accumulated data to systematically decide how to roll out new services. Obviously, new services would first go to neighborhoods where demand is documented to be the highest. If neighborhood A wants faster Internet badly enough to demand it, they’ll get it.
 
Cable operators can use these same CRM services to pre-populate the homes passed database with names and phone numbers for each stop. Now cable operators can personalize direct marketing campaigns rather than always address letters to occupant and telemarketing calls to the head of the household.
 
All this is good both for the cable operator, who gets more return for the marketing dollar, and for subscribers, who get the satisfaction they crave.
 
Cable companies are spending big money on customer service and the homes passed database. Why not make this investment produce more than just the sum of its parts?
 
 
Kim Garner is vice president of product marketing for TARGUSinfo, the leading provider of On-Demand Data for consumer-facing businesses.
 







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