Meridian Awards 2010

About Shenzhen Telecom

Shenzhen Telecom is a branch of China Telecom based in the southern city of Shenzhen. China Telecom Corporation Limited is the world's largest wireline telecommunications and broadband services provider, delivering telecommunications and information services covering voice, data, image and multimedia mainly in 20 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in China, with more than 220 million fixed line subscribers and 35 million broadband subscribers.

Challenge: Raising customer satisfaction and retention rates through better billing

During 2005, Shenzhen Telecom set out to establish an Integrated Business Support System (IBSS), which provided a computerized support and data source to serve as the foundation for the construction of a billing system. At the end of 2005, Shenzhen Telecom began to search for an integrated billing solution to enhance its customer bills and invoices. The starting goal was simple: to display more detailed information on bills and receipts and to speed up the delivery of bills. The desired end result was for the company to raise customer satisfaction, retain current customers and attract new ones.

With the rapid development of mobile services in the region, more consumers were questioning the necessity of a landline. Consequently, fixed network operators were coming under pressure to retain and recruit customers, and there was a greater emphasis on providing improved customer service as a competitive advantage.

At the time, Shenzhen Telecom issued 2 million bills (or receipts) per month to request that users pay telecom charges in a timely manner. However, according to Lai Tanhai, service and support manager, Shenzhen Telecom, the bills would often prompt further call center inquiries by customers. “Regardless of whether it was a bill or a receipt, the information on it was incomplete and unclear, and many people would call our customer service center as a result. Complaints were numerous, as were requests,” said Lai. “Although raising the level of customer service was a gradual process, improving our bills was an urgent necessity.”

Furthermore, the then current system of issuing bills was a complex process involving many manual procedures. It usually required several days to produce a batch of bills, which meant high costs and long hours for workers processing the bills. The complexity of the billing system meant that segmentation was also virtually impossible. Subsequently, Shenzhen Telecom could not present individual high-end business customers with a bill that would suit their needs.

During the review process, Shenzhen Telecom discovered that it might just have set the original bar too low. Lai explains, “We began by considering changes to the paper bills, but in looking at Group 1 Software’s Customer Communication Management (CCM) solution, we found that we could move into e-billing applications that would lower our costs and could also better satisfy the requirements of some of our business customers. At the same time, in terms of customer segmentation, we could get more specific. That in turn allowed us to customize the bills and even do individualized sales.”

Shenzhen Telecom chose to implement the CCM solution by Group 1 Software not only because the plan was stable and had high operability, but more importantly, because the plan offered a greater number of billing functions and allowed the company to provide better customer service. “Although setting up an integrated billing system was originally done in the interest of improving the quality of customer service, we wanted to cut even farther to the bottom of things,” said Lai.

Solution: Group 1 Software Customer Communication Management (CCM) Implementation of the new CCM solution began in February 2006.

Currently, Shenzhen Telecom uses three modules from the CCM plan:

• Data preparation, handling and integration using Data Flow from Group 1 Software;
• Document composition and distribution management utilising DOC1 Series 5 from Group 1 Software;
• Customer feedback management supported by E2 Vault from Group 1 Software.

The CCM solution is very compatible with the company’s IBSS system due to the strong data handling functions of Data Flow, which has the capacity to handle documents with data in various formats, while the E2 module connects seamlessly to the call center system.

The billing system currently implemented begins with the Data Flow module obtaining business data from Shenzhen Telecom’s Oracle database. This module obtains, combines, separates, filters and validates the data. The DOC1 application is then able to obtain, assemble and separate data. Next, the data is integrated into a bill and feeds receipt data back into the Oracle database for use when required, while automatically outputting file copies in an appropriate format. After the bill is complete, the system can output customer bills on various printers and send the data to the E2 Vault for storage.

Benefits: Enhanced bill presentment reduces call center inquiries and allows for targeted marketing

Following a three-month trial of the new Group 1 Software CCM solution, Shenzhen Telecom’s integrated billing system went into full operation in May 2006. The immediate benefits have been numerous with enhanced bill presentment allowing for the following:

1. The system separates telecom bills and receipts, while still allowing them to be printed and sent together to the customer, thus improving bill presentment;
2. The new bills rework consumer items, allowing searches for fixed fees, telecom fees, agency fees and other items and amounts;
3. It is possible to confirm payment sent previously and discounts for pre-payments;
4. Consumer details can be added to items so that the customer receives a simple bill that is readable at a glance.

The electronic retention of bills supported by E2 Vault has facilitated communication between customer service representatives in the call center. A major benefit is the reduction in call resolution time, helping to further raise customer satisfaction as bills can be viewed by the call center agent in the same format in which they were sent to the customer.

The new system has also allowed Shenzhen Telecom to implement customized bills, so that each customer is treated in a personalized manner through their individual communication. Targeted product marketing and sales are also added to the communication. For example, different product advertisements and announcements are inserted into bills that are delivered to government, private and local customers. Based on different levels of monthly telecom charges, customers receive promotions involving alternate products or packages. In particular, for high-end business customers, bill production can satisfy specific company requirements.

According to Lai, “Increasing the level of customization of bills is helpful in cross-selling new company products or sending advertisements for promotions or sales. Customers can also obtain benefit from customized information provided to them, and this ultimately raises customer loyalty and satisfaction rates.”

Within a month of the project going live, a June 2006 customer satisfaction survey highlighted that customer satisfaction with bills had risen 2.4 points. “Now our bills are produced not in 80 hours, but in just 24 hours, and the consumer items are more detailed,” said Lai. “As a result there has been a huge drop in customer complaints.”

After the CCM system went online, the number of calls fielded by the customer service center dropped from 200,000 per month to 114,000, greatly relieving pressure on the front-end service departments. The reduction also resulted in indirect savings in company operating costs. Based on Renminbi (RMB) 1.40 per call, the potential savings in this area total RMB 1.45 million per year.

A future goal for Shenzhen Telecom will focus on adding e-billing functionality using Group 1 Software. Lai explains, “For some business customers, long-term business travel may mean they are unable to receive bills by post. But if their bills are sent out by e-mail in electronic format, they arrive quickly. For us, there are additional cost savings that can be made through e-billing.”