Success

Story: Telecommunications

Bharti Airtel Ltd.

Success Story > Telecommunication > Bharti Airtel Ltd. | page 2

AT A GLAnce

About Bharti Airtel Limited

Scalability is a crucial
Bharti Airtel is the leading mobile telecom provider in a hyper-competitive and costconscious market, which necessitates innovation and cost optimization. From 2008 to early 2009, Bharti Airtel added 32 million new customers, and believes it can add another 100 million customers in a few years. At its current pace of nearly 100,000 new customers per day, this goal seems well within reach. In order to deliver the highest quality service at the lowest possible cost, the firm has had to embrace the business model that has helped make India an economic powerhouse: business process outsourcing (BPO). The firm outsources many of its most fundamental functions and infrastructures, including its information technology (IT) operations to IBM, Nortel and Wipro; its communications networks to Ericsson and Nokia Siemens; and its contact centre operations to Nortel and Wipro. With 25 contact centers and 15,000 agents nationwide, Bharti Airtel needed to find a way to reduce the cost of delivering excellent customer service and handle millions of customer calls each month.

B
Bharti Airtel Ltd.

www.airtel.in
Indias largest mobile operator 114+ million subscribers Group company of Bharti Enterprises Founded 1995 and based in New Delhi Ranked #6 on the BusinessWeek InfoTech 100 list (2009)

harti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is among Asias leading integrated telecom services providers with operations in India and Sri Lanka. The company has an aggregate of over 113.4 million customers as of end September 2009, including 110.51 million mobile customers. Bharti Airtel has been ranked among the six best performing technology companies in the world by Business Week.

Bharti Airtel is structured as four strategic business units Mobile, Telemedia, Enterprise, and Digital TV. The mobile business offers services in India and Sri Lanka. The Telemedia business provides broadband, IPTV, and telephone services in 95 Indian cities.The Enterprise business provides end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national and international long distance services to carriers. The Digital TV business provides Direct-to-Home TV services across India. All these services are provided under the Airtel brand. Airtels national high-speed optic fibre network currently spans over 113,326 Rkms covering all the major cities in India. The company has two international landing stations in Chennai and Mumbai that connect two submarine cable systems i2i to Singapore and SEA-ME-WE-4 to Europe. To understand Bharti Airtels success requires an understanding of Indias unique telecom market and the firms commitment to building strong customer trust and confidence. Bharti Airtel is already one of the most integrated telcos in the world and is on track to achieve its goal to become the Most Admired Brand in India.

Partnerships free Airtel to focus on core functions

In 2004, Bharti Airtel started the first phase of Contact Centre Technology implementation also known as CCT1, in partnership with Nortel. The objective was to provide contact centre support for the GSM mobile, broadband, and fixedline services, including the IVR and PBX infrastructure required to handle inbound call traffic. By 2009, more than 35,000 ports of IVR had been deployed across four hubs, connecting 25 contact centres across the country. Speech-enabled IVR applications allowed callers to interact with the system in several languages. India

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has one of the most diverse cultures in the world, including the use of 23 languages and 325 dialects. With exponential subscriber growth and ever-increasing product offerings (e.g.VAS), the IVR menus were becoming increasingly complex. In addition, customers who couldnt resolve their queries at the IVR were expecting expert human assistance. In 2008, Bharti Airtel selected Indian IT service provider and Genesys Premier Partner Wipro Technologies to implement Phase 2 of the firms Contact Centre Technology (CCT) improvement plan.

challenges
> Manage more than 4 billion inbound contacts per year > Approx 30 million new subscribers annually > 28 states each with unique languages and cultures > Large number of competitors > Balance high-quality service with operational efficiency

The need for a business problem solution

With CCT1 we achieved the ability to provide consistent customer service for inbound calls; however, we were still not able to fully optimise our resources, explains Dr. Jai Menon, Airtels CIO Director Technology & Customer Service and Group CIO Bharti Enterprises.. With CCT2, we graduated to the next step and built intelligent routing to enable call segmentation and load balancing. We also introduced automation for outbound contacts, which had been primarily a manual process up to that point. The CCT2 project included three key components: 1. Upgrade Nortel TDM to Nortel IP PBX infrastructure for inbound traffic; 2. Introduce Genesys-based computer telephony integration (CTI) with Nortel PBX and IVR for inbound traffic; and 3. Implement Genesys Outbound Voice and Genesys Proactive Notification and use Genesys SIP to virtualise contact centre operations nationwide. Bharti Airtel conducted an extensive evaluation process to select solutions for CCT2, including careful identification of the business problems it faced, key performance indicators (KPIs), proof-of-concept testing, and requests for information and pricing. Ultimately, we were not so much purchasing technology as we were solving a business problem, Dr. Menon says. So we looked to marry the business outcome with an enabling technology to solve specific problems.

The Results
> Achieves greater efficiency by consolidating contact centre services > Routing flexibility enables customer segmentation > Reduces outbound call duplication and overlap > Improves customer and agent satisfaction > Reduces average call time over millions of customer calls

Flexibility and clear roadmap make Genesys the right choice

Why Genesys? Number one is the flexibility the Genesys solutions provide, Dr. Menon notes. Second, the open architecture makes integration much easier. Also, scalability is crucial to us to support our rapid growth. A clear technology roadmap and a commitment to continued R&D were also very important factors in our decision to choose Genesys. Callers who are unable to resolve their issues via IVR self-service are routed to the Genesys Customer Interaction Management (CIM) platform, which is linked to Airtels Oracle customer relationship management (CRM) solution.The callers account information is then sent along with the call to an agents desktop, where it appears in a pop-up window. Business rules built into Genesys CIM enable Bharti Airtel to segment calls based on various factors, including the product or service, preferred language, and the callers overall value (e.g., a Platinum customer) and route the call to an appropriately skilled agent. The use of Genesys SIP means that any agent on the IP network can be called upon no matter where they may be located.

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Purposeful and appropriate routing, along with CRM account information, has helped increase the first-time resolution (FTR) rate substantially. And, Airtel saves time on every call. You can imagine how much total time we can save by shaving a second or two off of every call, Dr. Menon notes. With millions of customer calls, it translates into significant savings in time and money. Genesys Outbound Voice and Genesys Proactive Notification are used by Bharti Airtel to accomplish a wide range of services and functions, including: Debt collection and past-due reminders Promote new products and services Proactive customer service and notification Cross-sell or up-sell based on previous account behavior Prior to the implementation of these Genesys solutions, Bharti Airtel depended on manual processes to accomplish outbound calling. Before we implemented Genesys, we often had multiple groups such as marketing, customer service, and collections calling the same customers, Dr. Menon explains. There was frequently overlap, which frustrated customers and was wasteful from a time and resources standpoint. Now, we have a single, consolidated view of the customer and the outbound process is automated for greater impact and efficiency. We can also better track results and provide a connection to a live agent when needed. The Genesys Outbound Voice and Proactive Notification solutions are also helping Bharti Airtel better manage an ever-changing Do Not Disturb (DND) list. The penalty for violating this strict new DND listing can be fines or loss of a business license. Obviously, scalability is our number one consideration with any new solution, Dr. Menon emphasises. With millions of new customers every month, we have to have solutions that are expandable and extensible and give us the greatest choice in future direction. We believe we have that with Genesys.

Solutions
> Genesys Customer Interaction Management (CIM) > Genesys Outbound Voice > Genesys Proactive Contact > Genesys SIP > Nortel IVR and PBX > Oracle E-Business CRM Suite

Genesys, in combination with the other key elements of our contact centre infrastructure, is enabling us to handle very large call volumes and still provide high quality customer care. Scalability, flexibility, and a clear roadmap made Genesys the right choice. Dr. Jai Menon Director Technology & Customer Service Group CIO Bharti Enterprises

Genesys Worldwide
Genesys is the leading provider of software to manage customer interactions over the phone, Web, and mobile devices. The Genesys software suite connects customers with the right resources self-service, assistedservice and proactive outreach to fulfill customer requests, optimize customer care goals and efficiently use resources. Genesys software directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day for 4,000 companies and government agencies in 80 countries. These companies and agencies can leverage their entire organization, from the contact center to the back office, to dynamically engage with their customers. As a result, Genesys stops customer frustration, drives efficiency and accelerates business innovation. For more information visit: www.genesyslab.com, or call +1 888 GENESYS or 1-650-466-1100. 3135 v.1-12/09-APAC

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