Ericsson expands BSS offering through Microsoft CRM alliance

•The solution helps operators’ customer service representatives to work more efficiently

•This telco specific functionality enables operators to offer better-quality services and improve customer satisfaction.

Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) today announced its move to work with Microsoft to provide an integrated billing and CRM solution for operators or service providers. The solution will enable service providers to improve their customer care operations and thereby increase customer satisfaction.

Integrating Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and other Business Support Systems (BSS) is an increasingly important part in the service providers’ strategies to attract new subscribers and retain those they already have. This is also a key part of efforts to entice former customers back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and customer service. According to analysts, a unified CRM and billing solution can reduce the time to launch new services from months to only 2-3 weeks.

Ericsson’s solution combines subscriber and billing data in a Unified Agent desktop, allowing the customer service representative to quickly address the needs and improve customer satisfaction. When a customer complains of an error invoice, comprehensive data detailing billing history and recent calls are displayed on the screen. This detailed information will enable them to solve the problem, for example by granting compensation such as free units via their bill.

Christoffer Andersson, head of Solution Area Billing & Customer Care, says: ”We are delighted to enter into this relationship with Microsoft. It will strengthen our Operation Support System and Business Support Systems portfolio offerings. This solution will complement our strong Systems Integration capabilities in a multi-vendor environment, to provide our customers with integrated end-to-end CRM solutions based on best-of-breed packages, improving customer experience and helping our clients in growing a loyal and profitable customer base.”

"We’re delighted to be working with Ericsson to offer the flexibility of Microsoft Dynamics CRM for its latest customer care offering for operators worldwide,” said Jim Dietrich, Industry Managing Director, Communications Sector at Microsoft. “Service providers will benefit from a more agile and cost-effective solution that will help them deliver differentiated services with greater efficiencies. Consumers will also reap the benefits of a richer customer experience when interacting with their service provider."

This CRM solution is adapted for the business needs of telecom operators and is based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, pre-integrated with Ericsson’s billing solution BSCS iX. Ericsson will continue to evolve its billing product offering to support end-to-end integration in a multi-vendor CRM space.

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