A couple of years ago, Escotel, the company that offers cellular services in UP (W), Haryana and Kerala, was faced with a dilemma that many services companies often face—how to implement a CRM that not only meets the company’s business goals but also keeps customers happy. Escotel’s predicament was accentuated by the fact that it was not just looking at keeping customers happy by attending to their complaints, but also at opportunities to surprise customers, during interactions, by offering them advice on their usage, so that they could derive more value for their money spent. The most surprising element of all this was, as Srivalsan K Pillai, head, customer care, Escotel, says, to encourage customers to save money. Interestingly, the cellular service provider wanted to experiment with all this in a business environment where either it was a monopoly (UP (W)) or had a huge lead over its competitors (Haryana and Kerala).

Two years ago, complaints at Escotel were steady at a high of 38 per 1,000 customers. It badly needed a good CRM solution Escotel began working on a CRM strategy using the billing system’s ‘comments’ screen. Then, it got a CRM application developed by Escosoft Established CRM vendors offered solutions at prohibitive prices, the lowest being $1.25 million. Still, return was not guaranteed even in 18 months Promise, a Web-enabled software, renamed VCare, was developed. Escotel claims that complaints are down to a mere 7 per 1,000 customers

At Escotel, customer queries and complaints are primarily resolved by means of toll-free call centers, one in each circle. Complaints are also registered at any of its several ‘walk-in’ centers.

During April 2000 to September 2000, it was found that Escotel’s complaint management process was showing alarming trends. The complaints per 1,000 customers were steady at a high figure of 38 per 1,000 customers. This was because 40 percent of the complaints logged at district walk-in centers failed to reach or were delayed by more than four days before reaching the central office for resolution. This resulted in customers visiting repeatedly for the same complaint. Consequently, complaints logged at district centers would be logged as a fresh complaint at the call center when the customer called to check the status of resolution.

It is here that Escotel’s dilemma began. Established CRM vendors offered solutions to its problems. However, the price of the technology was too prohibitive, the lowest offer being $1.25 million. Even if Escotel would have agreed to invest that kind of money, it was not sure of recovering this cost within a period of 18 months. Besides, as it did not have any prior experience in CRM, chances of failure were high, the primary risk being that the front-line staff would reject the technology and the strategy. This was because they were used to the old system of working, using the billing system and a paper-based process for complaint escalation.

It is in this backdrop that in June 2000, Escotel began experimenting with a new CRM strategy, interestingly, without using a CRM technology. It began with identifying four elements to form a CRM strategy using the billing system’s ‘comments’ screen to record customer queries and complaints. This would provide a single view of the customer’s interactions. The customer’s previous month’s usage was recalculated for a lower airtime rate (higher monthly fees) plan and the monthly savings were calculated. Those who would save were sent customized mailers with specific savings that would accrue.

A data-mining report was created and run after each billing cycle to identify the top two numbers dialed by each customer along with the usage charges. The usage was recalculated at a 50 percent discount, which would apply to the Friends and Family plans. Those accounts, which would save, were called and advised accordingly. The mobile-to-mobile usage of each customer was also computed. Those who made calls of more than Rs 100 were advised to enroll in the mobile-to-mobile plan in which, for Rs 100 per month, calls to mobiles were free.

The impact of this exercise was reviewed in October 2000. Over 90 percent of the customers were advised and enrolled in the program. As a result, the revenue from these customers increased by Rs 12 million. The churn rate of these customers dropped from the normal 1.2 percent per month to below 0.05 percent.

Once the experiment ended, Escotel decided to implement a CRM solution. However, as the cost of established CRM tools appeared prohibitive, it looked for help from Delhi-based Escosoft Technologies Ltd. And the operator’s experiment formed the basis of the CRM application that Escosoft developed. The experiment helped the operator to identify the roadblocks that could be overcome by technology. One specification stated that the query and complaint-logging module should have a time-based escalation for unresolved follow-ups. Another talked about complete profile of the customer-payment pattern, barred history, e-mail ID, handset used, three-month usage, and credit limit. Some other specifications included plan advice by recalculated savings on upgrade to higher level plan, number of mobile-to-mobile calls made and charges incurred (data mined output), and the top two dialed numbers and charges incurred (data mined output). SMS usage, off-peak usage and the top two long-distance destinations (domestic and international) dialed also featured in the list.

All these specifications were translated into a Web-enabled software called ‘Promise’ (renamed VCare recently) by Escosoft. Promise was integrated with the existing call-center infrastructure via CTI pop-up, pulling in customer information from three regional and central CRM servers. The development time was three months, and it took just one week to deploy it in each of the Escotel circles. "The software is not only being used by the customer-care agents in the three circles, it is also being used by users from other departments like finance, sales and marketing, network-operations, and billing over the intranet," says Pillai.

Interestingly, the people who work at the front-desk have conceived Promise’s features and functionality. "This is a major advantage as the solution delivers exactly what the customer-care people need in most efficient way. It also ensures that the team is committed in getting results out of it. Therefore, the investments made by the organization start giving quick returns without any hiccups," says Anu Bajpai, head, convergence/telecom, Escosoft Technologies. She claims that Escosoft did not face any hurdles during implementation, as the user acceptance or involvement was very high and it continues to be so. "While developing Promise, Escosoft followed a product-centric development approach where at various stages, different set of users were involved and the wish list of users was met," she adds.

Promise’s effectiveness can be judged from the fact that prior to its deployment, the compliant rate at Escotel was 38 complaints per 1,000 customers. After using Promise, it has drastically gone down to a mere 7 complaints per 1,000 customers. "The positive side of this is as Escotel’s subscriber-base is increasing, the number of call-center agents is not required to increase in proportion, thus saving huge cost, in terms of infrastructure and manpower requirements," points out Bajpai.

Though Promise does not directly monitor the churn online. But it does maintain the unique ‘Customer Satisfaction Index’ over their various interactions, which can drastically reduce churn due to customer dissonance. Also, Escotel team offline evaluates the usage pattern of each customer, and uploads the recommended bill-plan for each customer in Promise, highlighting the savings for the customer if he decides to migrate to the suggested plan.

Ravi Shekhar Pandey