Delivering a great broadband experience is at the heart of every ISP. Whereas fast speeds and unlimited data usage were the initial broadband internet USPs, anywhere in the home reach, reliability, and security are now equally important. These increased demands and the continued growth in broadband customers have put increased pressure on ISPs to manage their costs while at same time delivering an exceptional customer experience.
And with the ongoing impacts of Covid-19, customer care to broadband subscribers has never been more complicated than in 2020. Operators have been forced to work with reduced staffing to socially distance and find ways for support teams to work from home. And all at a time when home broadband is under higher pressure than ever before due to work-from-home, higher video streaming usage, and the explosion of online gaming.
For broadband service providers, keeping support calls short and efficient doesn’t just satisfy the customer, it has a significant impact on costs. If staff can resolve problems over the phone without the need for a truck roll (engineer visit), the financial impacts are considerable.
It’s little wonder that the prospect of customer care efficiencies is a key driver for operator uptake of our Trusted Home Wi-Fi management solution.
Instant visibility for rapid response
The secret weapon in this area is the Trusted Home Customer Care Portal – an online interface that turns regular support staff into instant experts on connected homes. The Care Portal’s just had an upgrade to offer some great new features to further enhance efficiency. But before I introduce you to the new stuff, let me remind you why operators love this interface so much.
The Care Portal gives support staff a real-time view of what’s going on beyond the home router or gateway. It displays all the data gathered by the Trusted Home software so they can easily see all connected devices, plus relevant settings and protocols. It eliminates frustrating conversations where confused consumers try to explain their home situation but agents cannot “see” what is happening in the home. The portal also diagnoses many issues that can impact connectivity and security, giving the support team suggestions for remedial action.
Scoring a big victory for customer support
One of the most useful tools to support staff is the Trusted Home Score – a health rating on a scale of 1-100. It provides a long sought after “outside-in” view where the operator can really understand and what is really being experienced by its customer, instead of inferring from how the network is functioning (“inside out”). The Trusted Home Score is unique to each household and is dynamically updated based on three key event types that affect the subscriber in-home experience:
- Router reboots: the number of times the router has rebooted.
- Minutes offline: the amount of time a subscriber’s LAN has spent offline.
- Known issues: the number of devices on the LAN with known issues.
A quick glance at the Trusted Home score lets the support team see the overall health of the home network. In our latest update, we’ve added the ability for care agents to RESET this score. This helps in the process of tracking whether remedial action has resolved any issues reported by the subscriber. With the touch of a button, the score can be reset to 100 and it’s then recalculated over the following weeks’ worth of data, giving a true picture of network health following the remedial action.
Keeping Communication Channels Clear
Another new feature that will help operators to cut call volumes and associated costs is the Customer Support information tab. This allows the operator to input (and rapidly update) contact information that’s displayed to the subscriber in the Trusted Home app. Before they even hit the phone, the subscriber has up to date information on the best channels to use to get support at any given time.
Source: irdeto
