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How to Control IPTV Support Costs
     Using Automation to Reduce IPTV OPEX Costs

             By: Marc Itzkowitz, SupportSoft

IPTV dramatically increases the need for support systems and IPTV service providers who do not automate their support systems can see a dramatic and uncontrollable increase in their operational expenses (OPEX). 

Telcos today are investing billions of dollars to upgrade their systems to deliver IPTV. The task is not a small one, as most of us in the industry know, for there are many facets to delivering IPTV. Content must be licensed, secured and interesting, head-end equipment must be deployed; management capabilities must be put in place; a significant investment must be made in improving infrastructure; and customer premise equipment (CPE) must be properly installed, configured and capable of being remotely managed. With all of this complexity, the ability to have the various moving parts work seamlessly together to ensure an easy-to-use, high quality viewing experience is key for service providers. 
 Given IPTV is a relatively new technology, problems should be expected. IPTV systems requires new types of installation skills and configuration of equipment, which adds complexity to a service provider's operational support systems. Since customer issues such as installation, support and service quality can significantly affect operating expenditures, the success of the service often can depend on how quickly and economically problems can be resolved when they happen and how to prevent them from happening in the first place. Tools that not only make sure everything works together flawlessly, but also help both field and call center personnel in diagnosing and resolving issues have become increasingly important for service providers to successfully and profitably deliver triple play services whether they are IPTV, VoIP or high-speed data (HSD).

Figure 1: Service providers face three sets of issues in controlling OPEX: installation, support, and service quality. 

Figure 1, IPTV Operations Expenses

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At the end of the day, consumers have a pretty good feel for what the minimum service levels for television are. After all, they've experienced a high standard of services for these offerings for many years from the incumbent (e.g. Cable/Satellite) provider. IPTV service will have to meet or exceed these expectations. However, service providers are faced with the challenge that video services are considerably more complex and demanding, particularly when delivered over the same connection. Further, multiple services to the same subscriber are more difficult and costly to install, and supporting and ensuring consistent quality is more complicated. Within the residence, factors like the customer's home wiring and service usage that can affect video quality may be beyond the control of the service provider. In-home adjustments and configuration settings can have an effect, too. Without a thorough system check, one service call can inadvertently lead to another.

Zero-touch Configuration and Remote CPE Management

DSL Forum specifications such as TR-069 enable home access gateways (and ultimately set-top boxes) to be remotely configured, managed and diagnosed. Remote management of the CPE that enables IPTV is critical for a robust service offering. Automated firmware updates, based on criteria gathered about the customer's CPE and networking environment, can prevent known problems from impacting the customer experience.
"The priority for IPTV is to provide the basic service quality - in terms of picture and sound - that viewers have come to expect from other platforms. Only once this is established should IPTV operators try more sophisticated offerings. The driving force behind IPTV is the telecom sector's need to move away from 'plain old telephony services' (POTS) - an area in which it is becoming progressively more difficult to turn a profit."

                                        Adam Thomas, Informa Research

Improving the Customer Experience

In a recent independent U.S.-based survey of broadband subscribers, when asked whether they felt customer service would change if they received triple play services from a single provider, 37 percent thought it would "improve" or "improve significantly." 17.5 percent thought it would "get worse." Despite these high (and low) expectations, both cable and DSL high-speed data customers expect problems when installing IPTV or VoIP. The study revealed that 60 percent of DSL subscribers expect to encounter problems during IPTV installation.

If there is one significant takeaway from the survey it is that there is a 'golden opportunity' for service providers to exceed customer expectations and over-deliver if a way could be found to avoid the anticipated problems. The findings indicate that providing a positive installation experience could go a long way to improving service adoption and customer loyalty.

For instance, providing customer service representatives (CSRs) and field technicians with the ability to check service conditions or quality at their points of entry can help isolate the problem to in-home wiring or devices, or to the network. Applying this type of intelligent automation and technology to new IPTV or triple-play installations helps keep costs down and reduce operating expense (OPEX). Service providers should consider products that can help in the following areas:

Adaptable CPE management capabilities

CPE, including set-top box/decoders and modems, is always changing to reflect newer features and lower costs. Automation capability must be adaptable to the new, while continuing to support the old. The push to bring IPTV services online means most telcos cannot wait until all the kinks are worked out of fully automated installations. Service providers are automating what they can, while transitioning to fully automated installations.

Verification of service quality and configuration

To maintain a high level of customer satisfaction once IPTV services have been installed at a customer location, service providers should consider solutions that remotely can verify service quality. Using input from both the customer premises as well as the network, service providers should methodically and efficiently identify any problems, and guide technicians and CSRs to resolution and then ensure that services are operating according to established parameters. 

This 'whole house check' concept holds the view that all services -- IPTV, VoIP and HSD -- are verified before the technician leaves the customer's premises or before the customer service representative (CSR) finishes a call. This also enables the service provider to record 

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a "last-known good" set of configuration settings called the "golden record." By automatically creating and storing a snapshot of the last known working state, field engineers and CSRs can work to diagnose and resolve problems much more quickly without costly or unneeded truck rolls. 

Service quality verification can help service providers improve customer service and lower the cost of support in increasingly complex services such as IPTV. These remote monitoring and verification tools should be adaptable to different levels of expertise so customers and different individuals working for the telco -- such as CSRs, service technicians, and so on--with many levels of expertise can interact with the system using the tools they need for the job at hand. 

Figure 2: Service verification automates problem resolution - By providing Service Verification to the customer or field technician, best-practice resolutions can be appropriately provided to fix problems thus avoiding a call to customer service or a follow-on truck roll.

Automating the Installation & Support Process

The ability to manage complexity efficiently will have a direct impact on the adoption rate of new services and overall customer satisfaction. 

To keep customers happy, service providers must offer a consistent level of product quality and reliability. Therefore, automation is key. Where possible, telcos should build on their existing reputations for reliability by developing the capability to capture and automate best practices. This will improve the usability, quality and reliability of product rollouts, and dramatically reduce the cost of service fulfillment and assurance activities. These practices not only reduce OPEX, but also can minimize customer churn while maximizing revenue. Key components in automating the subscriber's home environment include:

Create a simple user experience

By employing widely available technology -- HTML, Flash, Web-based video, e-mail, or interactive chat (e.g. instant messaging) for interactive questions -- service providers can create introductory instructional modules that help users with basic self-installation and ongoing customer support and education. If a problem cannot be resolved then it is critical, they be escalated to customer support in the most efficient way possible both for them and for the service provider. 

Figure 2, IPTV Service Verification

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Operators that underestimate installation and customer-support costs for 'triple play' packages of voice, video and data services could see customer profitability dramatically undermined. But faults common to newly launched IPTV and VoIP services, which several European operators have already experienced, could cause customer support costs to eclipse any revenue gains and actually increase churn. While Internet-access services can generally be installed by the customer and repaired remotely, IPTV and VoIP are more complex, and so installation and repairs are more likely to require an engineer to visit the customer's premises, an expensive process known as a 'truck roll.'"
                                          Matt Ablott, Informa Research

Robust and data-driven best practices error handling

Data driven processes help to resolve issues quickly, especially across a wide range of products and should be able to ascertain correct software driver installation, firmware, configuration, cabling topology, network configuration, and so on, and guide the user to help resolve problems that might result from all of this inherent complexity. 

Extend proven self-service solutions for high-speed data to IPTV

Automated problem resolution, support articles and knowledge-enabled self-service all can play a role in automating IPTV support. The Web generally can serve up the most current information targeted to the specific problems being experienced by the user and can avoid a call to customer support. Rendering that content on the television makes it even more accessible and more likely that a call will be avoided. Following is an example of what that content might look like to an IPTV viewer. Not only can this TV-based self-help portal answer questions but it can proactively notify the viewer of problems and help them resolve them before they impact the customer experience.

Figure 3, IPTV Self Help Portal

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Figure 3: Interactive self-help portal - An example of a television-based customer-facing portal that helps answer questions, provide customer education and even proactively alert the viewer to problems.

Multi-channel Support integration

Successful IPTV systems should be able to integrate multiple types of support systems such as web based or CSR generated trouble reports. Any and all unresolved problems should be captured and forwarded to the help desk or proper resource for repair, ensuring that all problems get dealt with in a timely and efficient manner. Customers must be able to communicate using the web, email, chat or the phone and be red

rected to the most appropriate channel to repair.

The Benefits of Automated OSS Include Increased Revenue and Reduced Churn

The whole IPTV and blended services experience needs to be easy from the subscriber perspective. After all, most people watch television by grabbing the remote control and pressing the "on" button. Yet analysts and industry players expect IPTV to introduce some amount of complexity into the overall viewing experience. Without a proactive investment in customer service, telcos could see their billions in investments go down the drain as consumers they fought hard to win from cable and satellite companies leave their customer ranks. And in the triple-play arena, customer churn is an even more painful scenario for service providers. That's because if a triple-play subscriber has a problem with just one of his or her services, that customer may cancel all services from that provider.
The profitable adoption of triple-play services is built on exceptional customer service and that will rely in part on automation and best practices in a structured and methodical approach for installation, provisioning and problem resolution. 

As the director of product management and marketing, Marc Itzkowitz defines SupportSoft's product and partnership strategy. 

Itzkowitz received his Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford University.