New Facebook app connects customers to operators

Self-care application from Nokia Siemens Networks uses social network to manage personal telecom services

Nokia Siemens Networks has launched a Facebook app that operators can use to allow people to personally manage their fixed and mobile telecom services. The new app enables customers to check their balance, browse and buy special offers and subscribe to services. In addition, customers can share their experience across their social network and get rewards for recommending services to friends. The app aims to offer an improved service by allowing operators to engage with customers where they spend their time online.

“The beauty of the Facebook app is that it engages with people on their preferred social networking site,” said Rick Centeno, head of business support systems (BSS) at Nokia Siemens Networks. “People spend more time on social networks than individual websites. With this Facebook app, Nokia Siemens Networks helps operators to connect with people in a familiar setting where they already spend their online time. It takes self-care to a new level.”

An April 2011 research report from Ovum, ‘Defining the Rules of Engagement for Customer Service in Social Media’ claimed that “social media represents a significant opportunity for enterprise customer service.”*

"Nokia Siemens Networks is presenting a refreshing end-to-end vision of how CSPs can better meet their customers' needs through self-care, while also reducing their costs and becoming more commercially agile", said Teresa Cottam, research director and founder, Telesperience. "We've seen other companies articulate parts of this vision, but few others - if indeed any others - can deliver this in its entirety today."

For operators that deliver a superior customer service, Nokia Siemens Networks’ Facebook app can amplify and publicize genuine leadership. People who share their experiences with friends, and also recommend services, can benefit from special rates and incentives from operators. Friends benefit from recommendations that help them to evaluate which service package will best suit their needs. The app can also provide instant access to account information such as prepaid and postpaid balance, recent call duration, cost and contact details – all within the familiar Facebook site.

“This first social network integration will enrich a wide range of existing operator processes such as convergent charging, self-care, campaign management, business analytics and customer experience management to improve customer experience in a very efficient way. The integration is based on Nokia Siemens Networks’ modular charging engine and integration framework,” said Centeno.

The application enhances Nokia Siemens Networks’ range of self-care portals - share@once - that facilitate direct interaction between operators and customers. The new Facebook app complements a mobile self-care app for smartphones and a web-based self-care portal that can already provide a simpler way to manage telecom services.

All three share@once self-care portals – for Facebook, smartphones and the web – are based on Nokia Siemens Networks’ modular and scalable charge@once unified platform**. The platform provides a unified view for operators of special offers, and charging and billing for all types of voice and data services in all networks, independent of whether it is a prepaid or postpaid scheme.

By providing different types of self-care portals, and a new opportunity for operators to interact with customers, share@once enhances Nokia Siemens Networks’ Customer Experience Management (CEM)*** portfolio. CEM provides insight into the factors affecting a customers’ experience to define and automate specific actions to make it better.