The journey towards a more automated telco business is often motivated by a need to reduce operational complexity and achieve greater scalability and agility in the organisation. But what does all this automation of processes and networks mean at a human level, for the customer, and indeed for the employee, asks Shane Sura, Colt Technology Service’s VP of network operations. In what ways does the customer benefit, and how does automation change the nature of the interaction between telco and customer?
For one thing, the telco gets to be much more creative in how they engage with the customer. A traditional model of operations and services is labour intensive and therefore costly. If you can automate the basic handling of transactions then you can start to focus on the next level up. You are freed to focus on the individual customer journey. Once underlying processes are, for the most part, automated, you can start to put solutions on top and begin to differentiate between different customers, where and when it makes sense to do so.
Traditionally, the telco has defined the customer journey via system and process flows. But with the underlying transactions taken care of, you can add a layer of ‘bespokeness’ to the journey because you are no longer beholden to all that process. That’s powerful for the telco, and for the customer.
For sure, it’s possible to offer intimate customer interaction today, but only by expecting people to access all the details of the account, as well as view offline documentation. With everything mapped out and automated, systems become so intelligent that the agent can see at a glance everything they need. It’s immediately clear what the customer’s history is, what they have purchased and what’s important to them, all without the need for prior knowledge.
This leads to quicker problem resolution and ultimately to better customer service. You get shorter downtimes, less impact on the customer business, and a happier customer. Automation has liberated you to do more things that might be for the benefit of the customer, all in near real-time.
Automation also gives an element of control to the customer in defining how they want to interact with you, and in a way that is not possible without it. The service paradigm is reversed, and the customer is free to tell you what’s important to them. Their priorities can be defined by means of automation. They get the tailored communication that they need, as opposed to them purchasing a particular service and living within its parameters.
Let’s consider the employee side, too. Automation can seem frightening to the average worker. Especially among technical and IT support people, there is a lot of mistrust and fear about job protection and human disintermediation. The truth is that automation is coming whether any of us want it or not. But if you onboard the employee as part of that inevitable process then you are on track to enjoy a better outcome.
There are a lot of new utilities out there that allow a live agent to modify how automation works. And with the automation journey, you can really start to move employee skills up the ladder. So much of an employee’s time today revolves around opening tickets, notifying and crafting messages. That’s important for the customer, and it has to be done. Once you’ve embedded all of that in a nice, free-flowing format with real intelligence, you free the employee to engage in the most demanding issues in ways that asks more of them and ultimately gives them greater satisfaction.
Humans will always have a role. You need an agent because systems on their own really aren’t intelligent enough. The employees you take with you on the post-automation journey will become a really valued asset to the organisation. You’ve upskilled them and included them in the process of onboarding all the new tools and procedures. These employees also have a rewarding job structure because the mundane and repetitive tasks have for the most part been abstracted away, leaving them with the real core of it.
Then comes the business of learning from all those in-depth human interactions to set your future automation goals. The automation journey never ends. It’s an evolutionary process. But once you’ve made the investment and remapped your systems, you have a fresh starting point. The post-automation future starts to look good for telcos, employees and of course the paying customer without whom nothing is possible.
The author is Shane Sura, Colt’s VP of network operations.
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