Executive Summary (10 pages)

Chapter 1:

A Customer Assurance Framework
Customer Assurance (CA) Drivers & Challenges
Market Forces Driving Customer Assurance
Internal & External Customer Assurance Drivers
Obstacles to the Growth of CA
Carrier Demand for CA Solutions
The Vendor Landscape
CA Software and Services Vendors
CA Consultants
Complex Problems Require Sophisticated Solutions
Consultant Market Share
Summary of Consultant Contributions
Research Methodology
Research Purpose & Scope
Organizations Contacted & Survey Demographics
Technology & Solution Vendor Interviews
Secondary Research Sources
Customer Assurance Coverage
Survey Assumptions & Limitations
Estimating the Customer Assurance Market's Size
CA Assurance Terminology
Bus. Intelligence, Decision Support, Analytics & Mining
Operational vs. Informational Data Stores
Customer Assurance is Harder in Telecom
Data Warehouses and Data Marts
Extraction, Transformation, and Loading (ETL)

Chapter 2:

Customer Assurance Innovations in Marketing
Moving Towards Data-Intensive Campaign Management
Credit Scoring for Customer Assurance
Moving Credit Scoring Beyond Origination & Acquisition
Customer Relationship Management
Customer Assurance in Sales and Ordering
Inside the Telecom Sales Organization
Large Account Selling Without Tools
Sales Quotation and Administrative Systems
Individual Case Basis Sales: A Growing Concern
Sales and CRM Case Studies
British Telecom’s Field Sales Information System
eircom Creates Complete Customer Sales Picture
MCI’s Smart/Call Telemarketing System Architecture
Enterprise Bill Analytics
Contact Centers
Strategic Significance of the Voice Contact Center
Contact Center Basics: Common Sense Goes a Long Way
Local Number Portability Support in the Contact Center
Contact Center Technologies
The Evolution of ACDs: The Dedicated Switch
Skills-Based Call Routing
How Rules-Based Routers Work
Predictive Dialers – A Switch for Outbound Calls
Speech Recognition in the Contact Center
Organizational Changes: Empowering the CSR
Contact Center Workforce Management
Customer Care Integration with Retail Operations
The Drive to Consolidate Contact Centers
Intelligent Network Routing & Virtual Contact Center
Screen Pops, DNIS, & Call Identification
Web Self-Care
Information Complexity Drives Web Usage
Referential Data and Web Self-Care
Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVR)
IVR Innovation in the Cable Industry
Context Transfer of IVR and CSR Calls
IVR & Centrex at Verizon
Drivers To Contact Center Improvements
Quality Monitoring Systems
CSR Training & the User Interface
Synchronizing Customer Support Information

Chapter 3:

What Is Analytics?
Clarifying Analytics
Analytics Applications In Telecom
Analytics Road Map
From Spreadsheets to OLTP for Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence with OLAP
Incorporating Analytics in Bus. Intelligence Framework
Core Analytics Technologies
Comparing Analytics Technologies
Creating Analytics Models
Important Analytics Considerations
Data Preprocessing
Adaptive Analytics
Keeping it Fresh: Real-Time Analytics
Predictive Analytics
Measuring Analytic Performance
Analytics Challenges

Chapter 4:

Joining Customer Churn and Profitability Management
Getting Data to Use for Churn Prediction
Customer Assurance Data Types
Customer Churn & Profitability Management Analytics
Churn Prediction
Profitability Analysis
Churning Away Unprofitable Customers
Adaptive Methods: Feedback & the “Robot” Programmer
Organizational Considerations
Branding & Marketing Around Retention & Customers
Customer Churn & Profitability Management Practices
Churn Root Cause Analysis
Incremental Roll-Out of Customer Assurance Projects
Loyalty and Retention Initiatives
Bundling As A Retention Tool
Great First Impressions
Proactive Call-Out Campaigns for Customer Retention
The Relationship Between Profitability and Churn
Increasing Customer Care Talk Time
Managing A Customer Assurance Project

Chapter 5:

Why Customer Profitability is So Hard to Calculate
Profitability: Acquisition, Origination & On-Going
Quadstone Profitability Analysis Example
Personalization & Segmentation
Simple Segmentation Yields Big Returns
Building an Individual Customer Model
Segmentation, Privacy, and Data Protection
Advanced Profitability Management
Lifetime Value: Predicting Potential Profitability
Luminaries & Losers: “Circle of Influence” Profitability
From Buying Behavior To Underlying Rationale
Firing The Customer
Profitability Based Routing
Cross-Industry Data Sharing

Chapter 6:

Data Integrity
Sources of Customer Data Integrity Problems
From Manual to Automated Solutions
Detecting Data Integrity Problems
Systemic vs. Pervasive Data Errors
Correcting Data Integrity Problems
Business Process Modeling: Manual Data Integrity
Business Process Management Tools
A Single View of the Customer
How AT&T's CIO is Driving the Single View
A Single View at Belgacom
Data Integration
The State of Telecom Legacy Integration
EAI's Fall from Grace
The Impact of the J2EE Application Server
The Rise of Web Services
The Data Warehouse
Single Version of the Truth
The SBC Enterprise Warehouse
Sustaining, Protecting, and Expanding the Warehouse
Teradata Rules at SBC and Other Large Carriers
Data Warehouse Alternatives
Mediation Data as a Data Warehouse Substitute

Chapter 7:

Telecom Consulting & Integration
The Fusion of Systems Integration and Process Efficiency
Integration Can Still Make or Break a Software Installation
Multi-Year, Megabuck Projects Lose Their Luster
The Global Delivery Strategy
Building a Sustainable Revenue Base
How a Small Integrator or Consultant Competes
Taking Risks with the Customer
Successful Implementation
Top Causes of Telecom Software Project Failure
CRM Implementation Lessons Learned
The Large Telecom Organization
Large Carrier Bureaucracies and User Groups
Political and Budgetary Battles
Integrators & Large Carriers: Moat of Misunderstanding
The Peril of Not Identifying System Work-Arounds
Marketing Telecom OSS Solutions
Gaining OSS Market Visibility
Alliances with Other Companies in the Buying Stream
Keeping in Touch with Market Influencers
Influencers at Conference, Press & Consultancies
Sharing Info – Cultivating Long-Term Partnerships
Selling & Distributing OSS Software
Why Large Carriers Hesitate to Buy 3rd Party Solutions
Selling into the Feudal Organizations at Large Carriers
The Trend Toward Vendor Solutions
Should ISVs Let the Systems Integrator In?
The Software Certification of Systems Integrators
Relationships, Knowledge and Value for the Dollar
Sales Techniques
Communicating Benefits for the Product House
Tailoring the Sales to Ops, Product, Finance & and Dev.
Winning IT Support for Your Solution
From Sales Pitch to Benefit Performance
A Meeting of the Minds with the Customer
Bartering for Support from the Stakeholders
How Smart Guys Win Telecom Software Contracts
The Cultural Fit: Do You Want This Business?

Chapter 8:

Market Forecasts
Perspective on CRM
Professional Outsourcing
Carrier Pull vs. Vendor Push
6 Hot Vendor Solutions
A Customer Assurance Maturity Model
11 Vendor Recommendations
13 Carrier Recommendations

Chapter 9: 

Figures & Charts

A Layered View of Customer Assurance Elements
Growth in CA Software Revenues
Growth in CA Consulting
Customer Assurance Challenges and Drivers
Business & Technical Factors Driving Demand for CA
CA Function Spending Priorities
CA Spending Priorities
Telecom Market Share: CA Software & Service Bureaus
Telecom Market Forecast for CA Software:
     by Delivery Method
     by Service Provider Type
     by Geographic Region
Telecom Market Share of Leading CA Consultants
Market Forecast For CA Consulting
      by Service Provider Type
      by Geographic Region
Customer Churn and Profitability Management
CA Techniques Used for Retention & Profitability
Relationship Between Profitability and Churn
Screen Shot Of Quadstone’s Profitability Analysis Tool
Degrees Of Personalization: None, Segmented, 
       and One-To-One
Quadstone Decision Tree Tool Segmenting Customers
Breakdown of Customers by Profitability
Four Levels of Profitability Analysis Sophistication
A Data Integrity Framework
The Cross-Industry & Cross-Application Nature of Analytics
Telecom CA Analytics Market Share of Leading Vendors
Analytics Applications in Telecommunications
Siebel Analytics Architecture
Examples of Different Analytical Methods
Constructing Analytic Models
Measuring Campaign Success
A Mature Campaign Management Operation
Telecom CA CRM Market Share of Leading Vendors
Moving To Mrs. Green, Corner Grocer
Customer Assurance From a Sales Point of View
Breakdown of Telecom Worker Occupations
Top Reasons That Customers Call the Contact Center
CA Software Revenue Growth Through 2008
     by CA Function
CA Consulting Revenue Growth Through 2008
     by CA Function
Anticipated Carrier Need vs. Vendor Plans for CA Software
Customer Assurance Analytics Opportunity Map

Survey Tables

Types of Telecom Services Delivered
Types of Customers Served
Number of Phone/Data Lines Monitored
CA Function Spending Priorities For 3^rd Party  
      Software & Services 
Technical & Business Drivers for CA Projects
Uses of Mediation Data for CA Applications
Top Reasons for Customers to Contact the Call Center
CA Techniques in Retention & Enhance 
      Customer Profitability
Data Considered Critical to CA:
    Sales Analytic Data
    Usage/Traffic Analytic Data
    Billing History Analytic Data
    Customer Care Analytic Data
    Service History Analytic Data 
    Demographic and External Data
Obstacles Consulting Firms Face Winning CA Business
    at Tier 1 and 2 Carriers
Obstacles Consulting Firms Face Implementing CA Projects
    at Tier 1 and 2 Carriers
Top Data Types Used for CA
Market Forecast for CA Consulting
CA Software & Service Bureau Market Share
Telecom CRM Software & Service Bureau Market Share
Telecom CA Analytics Market Share of Leading Vendors
Credit & Customer Data Clearinghouse Market Share
CA Consulting Market Share
Market Forecast for CA Software 2004 - 2008
     by Application (Profitability, Churn, CRM, Analytics, 
             Credit/Clearinghouse, Campaign Mgmt, Data Integrity)
     by Delivery Method (Licenses, Customization,
             Maintenance, Integration, Service Bureau, Consulting)
     by Service Provider Type (LEC, LD, Large Mobile,
             Small Mobile, Cable/MSO, ISP)    
     by Geographic Region (US & Canada, EMEA, 
              Asia Pac, Latin America, Other)
Market Forecast for CA Consulting 2004 - 2008
     by Specialty Profitability, Churn, CRM, Analytics, Call
            Center, Credit/Collections, Campaign Mgmt.,
            Sales/Partner Mgmt., Data Integrity)
     by Service Provider Type
     by Geographic Region 
Vendor Capabilities
Software Vendor Feature Grid

Color Wall Maps of OSS System Diagrams

Four full color posters (Size 17 x 22 inch) are included with the report as follows:

• Telecom OSS Systems Pyramid

• Telecom Sales to Network Interface

• Telecom Billing Systems

• Telecom Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment Systems
  

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