Tata Teleservices, the customer is king

Telco TTSL, believes in top-class customer services

Tata Teleservices (TTSL) is part of the Tata Group. The company provides basic telephony services and complements and competes with Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) in the circles it operates in.
With a significant presence across the telecom value chain and the synergies after the acquisition of VSNL by the Tata group, TTSL is planning to expand the range of its coverage and services; advanced communication solutions now include seamless integration of voice, video, data and IP systems. As a basic telephone services provider, TTSL provides the backbone for India's corporate leaders such as GE Capital, Wipro, Magnacom, Citicorp Overseas software (now called Orbitech), Dr Reddy's Labs, Standard Chartered Bank, Motorola India Electronics, TCS and Satyam, in addition to servicing the telecom needs of retail customers.
After putting in place the required equipment and infrastructure, TTIL was committed to setting up a CRM solution that would cater to the varied needs of its vast customer base. "Oracle E- Business Suite has played an important role in helping TTSL meet its customer service needs," says S Ramakrishnan, managing director, Tata Teleservices.

Catalyst for change

In order to build its customer base, the TTSL management understood the need to have robust infrastructure in place to ensure quality customer service. This was to be a key differentiator for TTSL in the competitive landscape it was operating in. This was also a compelling need for the private sector service provider, as customer expectations were very high.
The TTSL management had the foresight to realise the potential of leveraging customer interaction to attract, maintain and enhance the lifetime value of the customer. The growth and wide acceptance of the service presented TTSL with an excellent opportunity to use customer interaction to enhance customer relationships as well as leverage the opportunity to upsell and cross-sell new products and offerings. To meet the strategic objectives of the customer care experience there was a need to have integrated processes and systems in place to:

1. Ensure that customers could access and get information about various services easily.
2. Provide quick and accurate resolution of customer requests.
3. Meet all the commitments.
4. Get things right the first time, all the time.
5. Constantly find ways to reduce costs and increase productivity to generate and safeguard company revenues and profitability.
6. Ensure that every interaction with the customer results in delight, produces joy and enhances the customer's relationship with TTSL.

Translating the corporate mission was a challenging task. TTSL realised very early that a CRM strategy required robust and scaleable tools. There was also a need to align all processes towards customer-centricity ethics and also to ensure that this got translated into faster, quicker and better service levels.

The solution

The evaluation by TTSL included getting multiple vendors to respond to detailed functional requirements, solution presentations, demonstrations and site visits. After a thorough techno-commercial evaluation, TTSL chose Oracle CRM tools. "The evaluation teams found the Oracle solution to be most integrated and with a clear growth path. This, coupled with the significant local presence of Oracle and excellent support for Oracle technology already in use at TTSL gave us the confidence to implement the Oracle CRM solution," says Rajeev Nagpal, CIO, TTSL.
TTSL chose sister concern Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to implement Oracle CRM.

The implementation

The project team from TTSL along with TCS identified the processes that needed to be integrated. The integrated CRM solution feeds information into the enterprise-wide deployment of Oracle Data Warehouse, which is used for all MIS reporting.
"The solution deployed was a complete CRM suite, integrating data warehousing and ERP," says Nagpal. A modular implementation was worked out wherein data warehousing was followed by applications to streamline customer service operations integrated into the system. This was capped by a state-of-the-art computer telephony integration (CTI) application. Alongside, extensive user training and orientation was carried out, .

Fruits of the loom

Call centre throughput has gone up by 15-20 percent. The first-time resolution of complaints has risen and turnaround time for complaints has dropped to a maximum of 24 hours.
Says Kurivilla Markose, general manager, Customer Service, TTSL, "The solution has also contributed in lowering the costs of customer service, thus directly contributing to the bottomline of the company."