Insights

Whenever a product vendor asks us to get involved in a transformation project to deliver a new customer experience that’s both in line with customer needs and the product itself, we know we have a long journey ahead of us.

And when we’re also asked to evolve that product to introduce a new person-centric model that bridges all business domains, we know it’s a journey we’ll love.

Where it all began

As part of a group business initiative with a focus on putting customers first, France Telecom & Mobistar had chosen Comverse to deliver a single solution for their pre-paid, post-paid, business, and wholesale business streams across the group.

But what were immediately apparent were the sizeable gaps between the product and the planned business transformation. They included exceptionally complex requirements that spanned all channels and segments, with the clear need for a person-centric model at its heart.

And that’s exactly where we came in.

Our role? Closing the gap between business needs and an out-of-the-box solution.

We were initially asked to deliver the core of Mobistar’s pre-paid solution, and from there we were invited to provide project expertise on their post-paid solution, covering the business, consumer and wholesale markets. That expertise also involved replacing the customer service, self-service, and dealer portals, along with introducing the full Comverse One Billing solution which meant it was a truly cross-business project.

The first step was for our telecoms industry experts to work alongside Mobistar’s business stakeholders and the team of Comverse Solution Architects, Product Managers, and Product Domain Specialists. The aim was to build an immersive understanding of the Mobistar environment, their current pain points, their drivers for a customer-centric solution, and the details of the business processes that would be affected by a new solution.Once we had the full picture of the requirements we worked with both Mobistar’s and Comverse’s Solution Architects to ensure the solution we defined met the client’s needs. This involved several iterations to refine the requirements until we were sure Mobistar could take advantage of the full power of the out-of-the-box solution.

We then ran a series of workshops across the Mobistar business and created a huge number of use cases that could be mapped to the Comverse One solution, while identifying others that required re-use or a redesign of the out-of-the box product – all supported with detailed wireframes and clear presentations that fully explained the solution.

Ultimately, it was our job to show how Mobistar’s business needs and the features of Comverse One could converge – closing the gap between their current offering and their future ‘real world’ requirements.

Results to be proud of

We delivered Mobistar’s key business requirements, which included: hierarchy management, fleet management, balance management, split billing, bulk ordering and bulk management. A central part of that involved moving away from a situation where the billing solution dictated the front-end user experience, to a system which leveraged the power of the out-of-the-box solution to vastly improve customer interaction.

We also defined a solution that took a new person-centric approach to Mobistar’s customers. Put simply: when a customer calls, they’re viewed as a ‘person’ rather than an ‘account’ – even if they use multiple services such as a home and business account, or a parent with multiple child accounts. What’s more, those same customers can also view the relationships between all of their accounts with an innovative and intuitive dashboard-driven view on all channels.

Our small team delivered huge results – and gave both Mobistar and Comverse a very clear picture of how they could adapt the out-of-the-box product to customer needs – and more importantly, what it would cost them.

But the biggest result for us was that some of the ideas and solutions we mapped out along the way made it to the out-of-the box solution and are now influencing the product direction going forward.

And that’s something to be really proud of.