1. Introduction
Customer support is a significant issue for any
broadband service provider. With an ever-widening
range of services being provided over broadband
connections, to an increasingly diverse range of people,
providing excellent customer support in a cost-effective
way is becoming more and more difficult.
Excellent customer support is a critical factor in
overall customer satisfaction, and hence loyalty, and is
recognised as a significant enabler to growing market
share in a highly competitive market.
This paper starts by discussing broadband customer
support. It demonstrates why change is necessary in the
way this support is provided, if a profitable service with
high levels of customer loyalty is to be achieved.
The paper then discusses (in section 3) how applying
an end-to-end methodology to the complete customer
experience — from when the problem first occurs right
through to when the customer is happy that a
permanent resolution has been achieved — enables
service providers to identify the key support capabilities
that are required in order to deliver an excellent
customer experience.
Finally, a number of innovative ways in which these
key capabilities can be realised, in a cost-effective way,
are identified (section 4). Some of these are already
being adopted by service providers, whereas others are
still in the research stage.
2. Mass-market broadband service support
2.1 The need for change in how broadband is
supported
There are a number of significant factors coming into
play that will, if nothing is done to change the way in
which broadband customer support is delivered, cause
significant problems for both service providers and their
customers. These include:
• broadband is appealing to a wider range of people,
an increasing percentage of whom have limited
technical skills and abilities,
• the complexity and variety of the technology
connected to the broadband service in the
customer’s premises is increasing rapidly (as an
illustration, 13% of PC owners now have a home
network, with 5% of PC owners having a wireless
network),
• the range of services delivered over broadband is
increasing, including ‘always-on’ services such as
home security,