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The COVID-19 pandemic has made the telecom industry an essential service provider. People prefer to engage and access services digitally and rely on telecom service providers to access the latest technology. In most cases, there are hardly any alternatives to accessing services digitally. But telecom service providers face several challenges in meeting customer expectations.

Read more: How Mobility helps Field Service Businesses Overcome Serious Challenges in 2022

1. Increasing need for responsiveness

With more and more interactions switching to online mode, customers take a closer look at their service providers. The reliability and resilience of the network are assumed. Customers prefer providers who resolve complaints quickly and offer value-added services. They expect:

  • Easy ways to log complaints and fast resolution. 
  • Self-service options for onboarding, making changes, and troubleshooting.

Many service providers tackle the challenge by rolling out zero-touch networks. Here, customers undergo 100% digital journeys. Digital sales and support systems offer customers complete control over subscriptions and troubleshooting. Digital channels replace physical stores and touchpoints. The service provider provides end-to-end automation and enables self-onboarding, self-service support, chatbots, and more.

The success of a digital-enabled zero-touch policy depends on flexible and agile backend operations. Operators support zero-touch with hyper-scale infrastructure, automated workflows, and AI-powered algorithms. They make their workflows lean and implement agile principles.

2. Deeper cloud penetration

The work from home mandates that came with the pandemic sped up cloud adoption. Enterprises migrated their databases and applications to the cloud to enable anywhere access. Gartner’s 2022 report predicts that 95% of new digital initiatives to have the cloud as the foundational base by 2025. The corresponding figure for 2021 was under 40%.

The increasing cloud traffic adds to the load on the network. Service providers have to upgrade their technology and strengthen their service infrastructure constantly. In addition, real-time troubleshooting is critical for uptime. 

3. The rising popularity of the Internet of Everything (IoE)

Even as the Internet of Things (IoT) is gaining ground, the focus shifts to the Internet of Everything(IoE.) With IoE, providers offer intelligent connections that connect people, processes, applications, and data. These connections, facilitated over telecom networks using standard protocols, unlock enormous possibilities.

5G powers increasing popularity of IoT and IoE. 5G offers ultra-fast speed and bandwidth with reliability and security.

Increased digitalization, combined with the rise of IoT, IoE, and 5G, raises the stakes of data security. Service providers handle an increasing quantum of sensitive customer data, making them a prime target for cyber attacks. Many providers implement cyber security mesh architecture (CSMA) to cope with the challenge. CSMA offers an integrated approach to security and keeps all assets in the network safe, regardless of the location of the asset.

4. Changes in product positioning

Customer sentiments and preferences keep on changing. More so in today’s age when attention spans are short and customer sentiments fickle. 

Customers now prefer data over voice. The preference for data had already attained critical mass before the pandemic. With increasing digitalization, data has become as critical as oil for society to function. Frictionless asynchronous communications, fast replacing synchronous communications, further increases the importance of data.

For telecom service providers, unlimited data subscription plans have become the order of the day. Even for voice calls, a majority of the customers use VoIP instead of conventional telephony.

There is also an increasing trend towards personalized product offerings. Customers expect personalized services when they allow service providers to access their data.

Telecom service providers seek competitive differentiation by introducing more digital services. But they have to upgrade to their latest technology and upgrade their workflows to do so.

People rely on telecom service providers to access cutting-edge services. But many providers themselves have legacy technology. Undertaking digital transformation for tech upgrades is an enormous challenge during a time of high demand. Even a few minutes of downtime cause huge losses and inconvenience to customers and wreck customer satisfaction.

Read more: The Changing Landscape Of Field Service Management In The Utilities Industry

How can a field service management suite help?

The field service management suite helps businesses digitize their operations and streamline workflows. Enterprises leverage the latest technology on offer to support their product positioning.

A good suite helps service providers become resilient, agile, and more responsive to their customer’s needs. Field technicians get intuitive interfaces to get things done. The suite applies automation to improve the efficiency and accuracy of key processes. Service providers may leverage the suite to actualize IoE and benefit from the new technology. For instance, when scheduling work for field technicians, the suite considers:

  • Whether the technician has the required skills or qualifications for the job.
  • Whether the assigned work time falls within the company work hours and is not on holiday.
  • Whether the technician already has another job assigned, and so on.

ReachOut Suite offers a complete digital field service management suite. Service providers and field technicians may access this robust cloud-based suite using a web browser or a smartphone app.

ReachOut makes scheduling effortless. Service providers may accept customer service requests and convert service requests into tickets. The tickets convert into work orders, which the scheduler assigns to field technicians. The automated suite applies various pre-set rules and filters to ease scheduling. Easy calendar views, combined with drag-and-drop interfaces, make scheduling easy. Schedulers may assign priority levels, ensuring immediate response to emergency jobs.

Integration with maps guides technicians through the best routes, improving productivity. Integration with inventory ensures field technicians go with the right tools and spares. As a result, first-time fix rates improve considerably.

Real-time tracking, leveraging the service technician’s smartphone GPS, offers accurate ETA. It also helps supervisors to intervene proactively to resolve issues.

The forms marketplace offers hundreds of ready-made forms. These forms suit all purposes and enable service providers to structure their workflows. Stylized forms enable branding in forms. Customers may upload their custom forms and replicate their incumbent workflows. They may even use their Apple Stylus pen to mimic the pen and paper inspections and form filling. Automated form filling speeds up work and improves accuracy. The ability to capture images and videos, and upload the same to forms, make reports dynamic. Automated pre-set reports, configured to Gmail or any other company email, take care of compliance.

The suite allows automated invoicing. Field technicians mark the work as complete using the app. The back end integrates information from the quote, work order, and other databases to generate instant invoices. An integrated payment platform enables the technician to collect payment instantly. The spin-off benefit is the automation of accounts and payroll processing.

The robust back end, with secure databases, keeps sensitive information safe.

ReachOut enables end-to-end digitization of field operations. Telecom providers may respond to service and troubleshooting requirements quickly. Customer satisfaction scores improve, and so does the competitiveness of the business.

To know more about how the ReachOut suite can benefit your business, talk to our team. 

Digitize your field service operations from scheduling to invoicing with ReachOut. Connect your technicians with the companion mobile app to execute jobs and reduce paperwork in the field. Try ReachOut now and give your customers the fast and quality service they deserve.

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Ashmitha Chatterjee

Ashmitha works with ReachOut Suite as a creative writer. She collaborates with the Digital Marketing team to deliver engaging, informative, and SEO friendly business collaterals. Being passionate about writing, Ashmitha frequently engages in blogging and creating fiction. Besides writing, Ashmitha indulges in exploring effective content marketing strategies.

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