RESEARCH FOCUS  -  CUSTOMER CARE IN TELECOMS

Call Metrics

One difficulty faced by the emerging and existing telcos, as well as any organisation operating in new markets, is obtaining realistic and relevant statistics that are applicable to the organisation and its market. Market research and competitor analysis can usually provide sufficient information to enable the decision to enter the market to be undertaken.

However, once market operations commence, the provision of constant, reliable, metrics in a readily understood form can be difficult. In addition to product sales data, telecom users will require call specific metrics including:

	Call based data
	Charging details
	Data on lost or dropped calls
	Demographic and geographic data
	Hold and call length times
	Reaction to scripting

A lot of this data can be obtained from the basic infrastructure statistics, such as billing data. However, for some, large, telecom users, the volume of data generated can be overwhelming. There is a need to interpret the raw data and break it down into more understandable information. This can be undertaken in a number of ways:

	Modeling and simulation
	Statistical analysis
	Sampling and Surveys

The data obtained will usually need to be reduced, analysed and interpreted before in can be used to support the strategic decision making of the organisation. The resulting analysis can provide data relating a number of customer service related activities, including:

	Uptake, or usage of products and services provided
	Customer reactions to new products and services
	Customer wishes for existing products and services
	Customer reactions to competitor products and

Related areas within this Research Focus topic, include:

 Billing    Service    Outsourcing    Systems

Additional information is also available on this Research Focus topic, these areas include:

Loyalty   CRM    Call Centres    Call Handling   

Return to the  Introduction  page of this Research Focus topic.