TELUS
Canadian telecommunications company shrinks call-servicing time for fast, search-box access to 6 million service addresses with OpenText™ IDOL™
Products and services
Solution group
Outcomes
- Modernized the address search experience to give its Wireline-services agents faster, simpler access to 6 million service addresses
- Replaced a complex, full-screen search form with a single-line search box
- Eliminated the need for user training; allows agent to search plain-text addresses instead of cryptic, abridged-address formats
Challenge
Error-prone data entry and a slow search process meant the customer typically had to wait for the agent to confirm a valid service address.
In keeping with the company’s commitment to deliver exceptional client experiences, the TELUS Wireline team sought to reduce the time required to respond to new customers requesting service or existing customers moving or ordering service at a new address.
When such a call comes in to a TELUS agent, the agent’s first step is to input the new service address, filling out a complex, full-screen form that initiates a search of the TELUS database of more than 5.6 million service addresses. Errorprone data entry and a slow search process meant the customer typically had to wait for the agent to confirm a valid service address and check availability of specific TELUS services to that address. To shrink servicing time, the TELUS idea was to modernize the process, replacing a complex entry form with a one-line search box. Key to success was deploying technology that could deliver high-speed text matching and search on an enterprise scale with the ability to maintain consistent performance to handle expected database growth.
Details
Solution
TELUS implemented IDOL, Connector Framework Server, and Key View. The solutions helped TELUS improve call servicing time, enabling agents to retrieve addresses within seconds using just 7–10 keystrokes. With data entry via a one-line search box, the system eliminates requirements for user training. Another benefit is improved employee engagement and satisfaction. The solution’s simplicity encouraged and accelerated adoption. One agent reports that address retrieval is “so easy to use, I can almost do it with my eyes closed.” Another notes that “this makes my job so much easier, one of the best changes we have seen yet.” Ideal for millennials accustomed to the intuitive simplicity of a Google search screen, the new TELUS solution garners high praise: “...our systems have been updated to reflect the way of the future.”
The results of this IT-led project align with the company’s corporate initiative to “delight” customers and improve likelihood to recommend – in this case by increasing agent efficiency and reducing servicing time, demonstrating respect for the customer’s time and ensuring maximum satisfaction. Winning the hearts and minds of customers through responsive service helps TELUS drive sales, reduce churn, and gain further competitive advantage.
Results
OpenText (formerly Micro Focus) enabled TELUS to:
- Modernize the address search experience to give its Wireline-services agents faster, simpler access to 6 million service addresses
- Replace a complex, full-screen search form with a single-line search box
- Eliminate the need for user training; allows agent to search plain-text addresses instead of cryptic, abridged-address formats
- Minimize clicks and deliver addresses within 7–10 keystrokes
- Suggest likely matches automatically
- Improve address qualification speed and hit rate
- Achieve a four-year savings of more than $2.5 million based on reductions in order fallout time, overall call reduction, and average handle time as a result of less time spent on searches
- Leverage technology across similar initiatives for customer and online use (agent feedback reflects enthusiasm for such expanded use: “Hope all of our systems are updated with this type of search, love it.”)
About TELUS
Headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, TELUS is Canada’s fastest-growing national telecommunications company, with $12.5 billion of annual revenue. The company has 12.5 million customer connections including 8.5 million wireless subscribers, 1.5 million residential network access lines, 1.6 million high-speed Internet subscribers, and 1.0 million TELUS TV customers. TELUS provides a wide range of communications products and services including wireless, data, Internet Protocol (IP), voice, television, entertainment, and video, and is Canada’s largest healthcare IT provider.
