Case Study: Issue Diagnosis & Evaluation Suite

Overview

The Issue Diagnosis & Evaluation Suite (IDES) is an innovative solution designed to streamline and accelerate diagnostics in complex telecommunications environments. Through a unified interface, IDES empowers support agents to perform comprehensive, ad-hoc checks across multiple back-end systems effortlessly. This reduces troubleshooting time, improves diagnostic accuracy, and ultimately elevates the customer experience for a leading UK-based telecommunications company.

Background

Our client, a prominent UK telecommunications provider offering integrated mobile and landline business phone solutions, operated a network of interconnected back-end systems essential for delivering seamless mobile and landline services. However, the fragmented nature of these systems created significant inefficiencies in the diagnostic process. Support agents were required to manually access multiple platforms during troubleshooting, leading to delays, extended resolution times, and reduced customer satisfaction.

Challenges

The lack of integration across systems presented several operational challenges:

• No Centralised Interface: Agents spent excessive time navigating between disparate systems, slowing down issue resolution and increasing operational overheads.
• Difficulty Identifying Service Disruptions: Pinpointing the root cause of errors was labour-intensive and time-consuming, prolonging resolution and escalating customer frustration.
• Manual Verification Errors: Human-led checks frequently resulted in misdiagnoses, wasting valuable resources on incorrect or non-existent issues.

Solution

To address these challenges, IDES was developed as a bespoke diagnostic tool tailored to our client's complex infrastructure. The solution enables agents to:

• Conduct Multi-System Diagnostics Simultaneously: Run ad-hoc checks across all back-end systems to swiftly identify issues and reduce resolution time.
• Automate Discrepancy Correction: Resolve inconsistencies between out-of-sync systems without manual intervention, ensuring data integrity.
• Validate Enrolments Proactively: Inspect batch files before activating new subscriptions, detecting and addressing anomalies early to prevent service disruptions.
• Perform Targeted Operational Reviews: Analyse back-end system performance for specific customers over defined periods, identifying potential issues before they escalate.
• Ensure Subscription Accuracy: Compare actual customer configurations against expected setups, flagging discrepancies to maintain compliance with service-level agreements.

Technology Stack

IDES was developed using the following open-source technologies:

• PHP: The primary server-side scripting language for dynamic content generation.
• PostgreSQL: A robust open-source database system, selected for its performance in storing and retrieving diagnostic data.

Results & Benefits

The introduction of IDES delivered transformative improvements in operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Key outcomes included:

• Subscription Provisioning Success Rate: Early anomaly detection and enhanced validation processes increased successful provisioning by 24%.
• First Contact Resolution Rates: A reduction in manual errors led to a 61% rise in first-contact resolutions, optimising resource use and lowering operational costs.

Impact

• Data-Driven Decision-Making: Real-time insights and automated reporting strengthened our client's decision-making capabilities, enabling more proactive service management.
• Proactive Risk Mitigation: The ability to address potential issues before escalation helped prevent major service disruptions, safeguarding our client's reputation for reliability.
• Improved Collaboration and Visibility: Teams gained a unified view of system health and performance, fostering better cross-departmental collaboration and transparency.

Conclusion

IDES transformed our client's diagnostic processes by eliminating inefficiencies caused by system fragmentation. The tool not only enhanced internal operational efficiency but also directly improved customer satisfaction. Faster resolution times, greater diagnostic accuracy, and proactive issue management now ensure seamless service delivery, reinforcing our client's position as a trusted provider of integrated business communications.

* The testimonials on this page are paraphrased and based on client feedback. Names, roles, and identifying details have been removed to protect confidentiality.