Portugal Telecom
Company: Portugal Telecom
Company Description: Portugal Telecom (PT) is a global telecommunications operator and the national leader in every sector where it operates. The company’s activity covers every segment of the telecommunications sector: fixed, mobile, multimedia, data and corporate solutions, available in Portugal, Brazil and in developing international markets. The company’s growth has been consolidating through the development
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Use of Technology in Customer Service
Nomination Title: Portugal Telecom - Customer Operations Excellence
Tell the story about how technology has improved your customer service initiatives since the beginning of July 2011 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Introduction
When Portugal Telecom (PT) decided to enter the pay-TV market we have realized that our vision would be to become a market leader hinged on providing the best possible customer service. In this highly competitive marketplace, it could only be done with a field workforce that is fast and efficient. Our workforce consists of over 4,200 engineers, making 2.1 million site visits per year. Improving the efficiency and speed of the field service team through a world-class mobility solution was essential to expand the service offering successfully.
The Solution
After reviewing the market for a solution that would give dispatchers intelligent real-time optimised scheduling, but also manage the complex workflows that engineers have to execute, we implemented a workforce management solution with focus on quality of service, consisting of:
•Implementation of a GPS tracking system installed on the entire fleet
•Iniividual PDAs assigned to all the engineers
•Adoption of an automating scheduling Tool
•Dynamic Dispatching Process
•Real time performance information available to operational managers
Results obtained
•High level of homogeneity of quality service delivered to customers
•Customer complaints reduced by 50%
•70% drop in ‘no show’ by engineers to customer appointments
•33% reduction in average time to repair
•15% cut in overtime through improved efficiency
•More than 99% of TV customers recommend PT to their family and friends
Portugal Telecom’s workforce management solution operate now for 18 months with significant improvements in customer service, as well as gaining a deeper understanding of how all field service teams operate as a single organism. Supervisors and management can understand the way time is spent by engineer, task, or technical problem. This information is continuously fed back into the system, allowing scheduling to be constantly optimized for future jobs and getting the right engineer, to the right job, at the right time.
By gathering the customers’ needs and desires with the engineer availability in real time, customers can be assured about the reliability of the appointment, and chose the date and time that is of their best convenience.
Each workforce engineer has an application on his PDA that can be used online or disconnected, with connectivity to back office information systems, network management, single sign-on and enterprise communication features such as video calls, photo-sharing for diagnostics and e-mail. Information is shared in real-time so that scheduling can be constantly optimised for future jobs based on the experience gained at every engineer visit.
PT is perceived today by our customers as a customer centric company. According to a recent survey, the majority of customers choose to be with PT because of superior product quality and excellence of the service delivered (price is not the key decision factor). Our customers are also brand ambassadors that recommend our products and services to family and friends. This explains why in just 4 years after launching its TV service, PT achieved market leadership in the triple play (TV+Internet+Voice) offering.
Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated customer service organization:
Jason Santos Inácio is, since 2007, the Infrastructure and Operations Director of PT, the largest Portuguese telecommunications company, with more than 93 million customers over 10 countries.
Jason Inácio joined PT in 2006 as Operations Manager in PTM.Com, a multimedia unit of the Pay-TV division (PT Multimedia). In 2007, Jason Inácio joined the PT Comunicações division, where he has been responsible for several large transformation projects, namely: Transforming PT Operations; rolling out of the brand new Pay-TV service offering (currently with over 1 million customers); and leading the fastest fiber rollout project to date in Europe.