Part 1 - You’re Sitting On A Gold Mine! And It Could Show True Service Quality From The Only Perspective That Matters: The Customer’s
Sometimes the true value of technical data isn’t obvious to business leaders
Imagine what the head of a customer-facing or service-quality-driven business function might be able to do if they had access to a detailed picture of every individual customer’s service quality experience, if they could know exactly how their service was being consumed, and how well it compared to the experience of others.
The surprising truth for network operators is that all the information required to do this already exists, hidden from view but just waiting to be used!
In an era of unprecedented demands on customer service quality, operators are sitting on an under-utilised treasure trove of CPE data. Each customer gateway can provide hundreds of parameters detailing its activity, its performance, and that of the devices connected to it. This incredibly rich data can be captured continuously, and the amazing power of data analytics, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) now allows customer experience to be comprehensively understood, monitored, and managed as never before.
For the first time, network operators could see their whole network from the vantage point where it matters most - the customer perspective, understanding in detail every leaf of their network ‘tree’, not just its trunk and branches. The potential is enormous, from quality management through to zero-touch customer service (download White Paper here). And with all the data already available, it’s easy to get started straight away without major new investment.
Engineers are thoroughly familiar with the range and content of standardised device parameters available via TR-069 and TR-181. Consider, for illustration, just 3 of each device’s WiFi performance parameters:
Retransmissions
“How disruptive the WiFi connection between the client and CPE/Internet is”A leading indicator of problems which slow down the connection long before they are considered errors (more powerful than ErrorsSent)
LastDataDownlinkRate / LastDataUplinkRate
“How fast the WiFi client behind the CPE (mobile phone, PC or smart TV, etc.) downloads / uploads the data from the Internet”Negotiated gross speed, not the actual speed!
ChannelLastChange / ChannelLastSelectionReason
“When and why the Access Point last automatically changed channels”Let the AP help you diagnose what’s happening in the wireless environment over time
These are just a few easy-to-understand indicators of service quality among hundreds captured and available every 5 minutes. And with the advent of USP, parameters like DataElements and MultiAp for understanding more sophisticated network configurations will become increasingly available.
In the hands of skilled engineers, and with the aid of sophisticated AI algorithms, this richly complex web of data could be analysed to give an incredibly nuanced and granular picture of every customer’s service experience, over time and compared to others.
Other industries could only dream of access to such an amazingly informative, minute-by-minute understanding of their customers. Yet it’s likely that the customer-facing leaders who could benefit most from this possibility in our own organisations are largely unaware that it’s there for the taking.
As engineers, we may know the data, we may master its complexities, but do we believe its potential has ever been truly recognised, let alone realised?
Read more about it in Part 2 - will follow soon here.
From this blog series:
Part 2/2