How smaller ISPs can offer big-league customer service

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November 24, 2020

Establishing yourself amongst today’s legion of broadband providers is no mean feat.

Global giants like T-Mobile and Telefonica have contact centres around the world, employing tens of thousands of support staff to keep their networks operating smoothly. Not to mention huge R&D teams whose sole responsibility is to find new ways to improve the customer experience.

Fortunately, a new generation of remote support tools and self-service apps have emerged to help level the playing field.

Let’s explore some of the ways these technologies help you improve broadband support and use your resources more efficiently, so you can offer a customer support experience that gives you a competitive edge.

1) Fast track support

Two-thirds of customers believe broadband providers’ online support channels are slow and difficult to use. At a time when home network usage is increasing, due to the sharp rise in remote working, many feel their needs aren’t being met.

The big telcos can get around this problem by creating their own digital support apps – custom-built to serve their clients. But this isn’t an option for smaller providers. They simply don’t have enough resources to research, design, and implement their own remote support or self-service tools.

To address this imbalance, our developers have created a range of remote support tools designed specifically for quick deployment. You can integrate them almost instantly with your existing systems. And, because they don’t require a lot of technical training to operate, are ideal for high-turnover support staff.

Discover how to stay competitive and thrive in a changing telecoms market.  Download our whitepaper now.

2) Optimise your current support channels

When you have limited resources at your disposal, you need to get the most out of them.

Smart support tools augment your existing support channels. Remote troubleshooting and self-service apps help customer support agents identify, diagnose, and resolve issues far more efficiently. This, in turn, allows your contact centres to process a greater volume of tickets – helping you grow your business more profitably.

It's true that a majority of customers will still call for support on more complex issues. But 66% will first attempt to resolve issues by themselves. By providing these customers with the tools they need to be successful, you're both meeting a clear need and reducing unnecessary calls.

Aside from allowing you to fix more issues remotely and easing pressure on support staff, next-gen tools help improve broadband support by:

  • Enabling faster first-contact resolutions
  • Reducing the number of call backs and escalations
  • Cutting down on customer call queue/wait times
  • Streamlining the handover process between different levels of support
  • Limiting your reliance on engineer call outs

Think of it this way: smart support tools give you the look and feel of a much larger operation. They help you optimise your support network and improve the customer experience, without needing to invest additional resources.

3) Leverage customer insights

Businesses have used the insights locked away in their data to improve products and services for years. And broadband providers are no different. However, this has traditionally been beyond the reach of all but the biggest companies. The investment required (in terms of time and money) was simply too great.

This is no longer the case. Smart support tools connect directly to your customers’ devices and capture data automatically, you have access to invaluable customer insights that you wouldn’t have before. For example, you could collect data on the onboarding process via your app and find out where the biggest pain points are for your customers. You can then work on ways to improve the experience going forward.

The same approach could also help you uncover inefficiencies in your call transfer process, discover when service outages are most likely to occur, and even identify hardware issues with your new routers.

Data is collected continuously, allowing you to refine your processes and take proactive steps towards improving broadband support for all your customers.

4) Overcome white-label hardware limitations

The biggest broadband providers use custom routers with their own firmware. This makes it easier to integrate the routers with their back-end support tools and resolve hardware issues.

Smaller providers must make do with off-the-shelf, third-party routers. The drawback, of course, is that it can be difficult – if not impossible – to integrate your support software with the router’s firmware.

One of the major selling points of third-party customer support apps like ours is that they’re designed to work with any router.

Regardless of manufacturer or technical specifications, you can troubleshoot and fix router issues remotely – without any additional complicated setup. Not only will this save your support staff time, it reduces friction for the customer.

Stay competitive. Improve your broadband support

High-speed internet connections and reliable coverage are no longer key differentiators for broadband providers. With so many options available to today’s customers, it’s almost a basic requirement.

52% of customers who switched provider in 2019 did so because of poor customer service. So in today’s world, the better your customer support, the more likely you are to stand out from the crowd.

Thankfully, improving your broadband support to the level that it can compete with the biggest providers on the market doesn’t require an intense investment of resources. All you need is the right support tools.

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