nTelos Wireless: Connecting with Customers across More Channels
In a highly competitive telecommunications industry, nTelos Wireless is striving to inspire increased customer loyalty by connecting with its customers to deliver the best value and experience, no matter what channel the customer prefers. With a customer base in the hundreds of thousands, making multichannel customer service consistently satisfying takes a dedicated effort, but the customer and community-centric company has made this important investment because they believe in the value of customer care as a business differentiator.
As a wireless communications services provider, the phone is undeniably a primary service channel for nTelos customer care. But many times for customers, due to time or location, it’s simply not convenient to call and speak to someone. Therefore, nTelos proactively led the charge in creating increased customer convenience by also putting the answers to common customer service questions, as well as additional channels of communication, online at support.ntelos.com.
24/7 Customer Access to Information
Prior to launching the brand’s online support portal, nTelos customers could use the brand‘s online My Account feature for common actions including signing up for auto pay, viewing their bill and making changes to their rate plan. But, to get information about other common questions such as activating replacement phones, payment arrangements or billing questions (which their Microsoft Dynamics CRM analytics showed made up about 38% of nTelos’ support questions), customers needed to call to speak with a customer care representative.
With Microsoft Dynamics CRM and its case management system already in place, nTelos selected Parature, from Microsoft, to expand its customer care offering onto the web with a multichannel support portal anchored by Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s case management system and Parature’s self-service knowledgebase. Already knowing what customer questions made up most of their FAQ calls, nTelos started by putting the answers to these questions online. Within just a few months as its customer base continued to grow, the company saw its average of 200,000 customer care calls per month drop to an average of 160,000. nTelos Wireless’ customer care staff could directly attribute this to the addition of Parature’s self-service knowledgebase, as well as the Microsoft Dynamics CRM and AlfaPeople ITSM structure and visibility of call categories, all working together in concert.
Working Together for Better Customer Care
One of the largest global Microsoft Dynamics partners, AlfaPeople was instrumental in integrating Parature’s technology into the AlfaPeople ITSM solution which runs on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform. AlfaPeople demonstrated its own dedication to customer care, getting to know nTelos‘ specific business processes and requirements while helping the nTelos team become familiar with its new solution capabilities and promoting user adoption.
Internal results of the integration proved just as impressive, with a 30% reduction in training time for new customer care representatives due to the fact that the majority of their processes, as well as information, were now on a single platform. nTelos Wireless estimates a $160,000/month savings from a 20% reduction in phone calls to customer care and the increased efficiencies associated with the new platform.
Building on Company and Customer-Facing Benefits
With the new features and capabilities that have come through the addition of AlfaPeople ITSM and Parature solutions on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, nTelos continues to realize added benefits. Because the solution is highly configurable, nTelos representatives are now empowered to make additions and adaptations to respond quickly to both changing business conditions and analytics reports, instead of going through more complex project processes to do the same thing.
In addition, Parature’s knowledgebase feedback and analytics are helping nTelos add even more helpful answers and information online, so that customers can always get the information they need at the time, and on the channel, of their convenience. Parature’s mobile-responsive support portal further facilities online self-service, even when customers are on the go. More than 10,000 customers per month currently utilize nTelos’ online support portal, with half of those accessing it using a mobile device. Parature‘s EasyAnswer functionality also helps customers find online answers faster by presenting the most relevant answers and information as customers type their question or keyword.
For more complex questions, customers also have the online ability to submit a case, and on the service desk side, nTelos customer care representatives are now even more empowered to both respond quickly and then categorize each case using AlfaPeople’s Quick-case technology. Through this categorization, nTelos Wireless can use analytics to further define and refine its business and customer care processes and direction in real time. “After only two-and-a-half months, our AlfaPeople, Parature and Microsoft Dynamics CRM investment had paid for itself,” notes nTelos’ Peter Friedenberg, Project Manager.
Inspiring Customer Loyalty and Business Success
In a highly-competitive market, nTelos Wireless is connecting with more and more customers via an increasingly meaningful differentiator: customer care. The brand’s mission statement sums it up, saying “We inspire loyalty by connecting with each customer to deliver the best customer value and best customer experience, and will positively impact the communities we serve, and the lives of our associates.” The statement above requires ongoing dedication from an entire brand, but as you can see, nTelos Wireless is continuing to make proactive and personalized customer care investments that are both inspiring loyalty and propelling business success.
Going to Microsoft Convergence? Hear nTelos Wireless’ Peter Friedenberg speak more about the company’s customer service success on March 18th and 19th.
—————————-
Watch the Webinar: Self-Service Success
Give Customers the Answers they Need
When it comes to service and support, customers don’t long for conversation. They want answers at their convenience, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which emphasizes the need for greater and better self-service options to help drive:
• First Contact Resolution
• Employee Engagement
• Consistency of Information Across Channels
• Self-Service Deflection from High-Cost Channels
• And Greater Customer Satisfaction.
In a pre-recorded webinar, The Service Council’s Chief Customer Officer and industry analyst Sumair Dutta details the benefits and current statistics around self-service for customer service. Bill Patterson, Microsoft Senior Director of Customer Self-service Solutions explores the critical role of knowledge and portals in self-service efforts, as well as consistent engagement across channels.
nTelos Wireless Information Technology Project Manager Peter Friedenberg also joins the conversation to share the brand’s notable self-service success, along with best practices to drive self-service adoption and continued use. Don’t miss out on learning just how much an effective self-service offering can quickly improve your brand or organization’s customer service success. Join us for this complimentary thought leadership and best practices webinar.
