Tier 2 and Tier 3 mobile network operators are the target market for a new customer experience management service launched today from Alcatel-Lucent.
In an interview with Telecompetitor, Jack Zatz, portfolio manager for Alcatel-Lucent’s managed services group, said the offering could be thought of as a cloud-based version of Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive Customer Experience Solutions portfolio launched earlier this year combined with what he called “heuristic” service modeling methodology.
The need that the service addresses is that network operators often don’t have visibility into how network conditions are impacting customers, Zatz said. “What matters is end user satisfaction with the quality of the service they are getting,” he said. “Users have an expectation of what’s acceptable. . . We’re trying to measure the customer’s experience.”
Motive is a probe-based system that gathers data about key performance indicators from a carrier’s network. By purchasing that capability as a service, mobile operators can minimize the need for upfront investment and internal IT resources, Zatz said.
Service modeling is done on a customer-by-customer basis, he explained. “We select which key performance indicators make sense for this particular service provider,” said Zatz. For example, he said a carrier that emphasizes its low costs will have different performance criteria than one that touts the quality of its network.
An Alcatel-Lucent toolset “detects, isolates and helps resolve issues that impact the customer experience,” said Zatz. By analyzing that information, Alcatel-Lucent determines “what data from what sources and at what frequency is needed.”
Once data is known and collected, he said, it is sent in near real time over a virtual private network connection to Alcatel-Lucent’s service management center for processing.
When information is gathered, carriers will know “when it’s at the point where end user satisfaction has deteriorated,” said Zatz.
When that occurs, the new Alcatel-Lucent service can either notify the carrier customer so that the customer can take corrective action or, if the customer purchases a higher level of outsourcing, Alcatel-Lucent can dispatch technicians to handle the situation.
Alcatel-Lucent has several competitors in the customer experience management arena, including Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks and others. But Zatz said Alcatel-Lucent is the only one offering the capability as a managed service.
Alcatel-Lucent has not announced any carrier customers for the new service, but Zatz said the company is in discussions with interested parties.
