Tin.it: How an Italian Broadband Pioneer Tailors Customer Care to Customer Behavior

The Italian broadband pioneer Tin.it (Telecom Italia) has always succeeded by being first. It was the first major Internet service provider in Italy. It was the first ISP to offer a broadband connection. It is always the first ISP to introduce new technology, new products, and new ways of providing customer care. Tin.it is widely known for delivering the best customer care in Italy. Through a creative use of technology from Motive, the leading supplier of intelligent service technology, Tin.it solves most customer problems by providing easy-to-use self-service.

In June 2005, Tin.it had more 1.1 million active accesses. The company’s services include single- and multi-PC connections, e-mail accounts, wireless fidelity (WiFi), hot spot locations, domain registration and professional Web hosting.

New and existing Tin.it customers enjoy a wide range of customer-care services, including self-installation kits for new customers; seven-days-per- week access to qualified customer-care specialists via a traditional toll-free telephone call or via Web-based systems (e-mail, chat or VOIP); and a specialized, innovative help site, powered by Motive, that automates the resolution of most technical problems that customers encounter.

According to Tin.it’s Director of Customer Care, Francesco Di Perna, who has been with the company since 1999, Tin.it customer care is constantly evolving. “We are constantly innovating,” he says. “We want to give our customers all the tools and information they need to solve their problems easily. In particular, we keep moving more of our assistance to self-service processes. Self-service offers our customers a rewarding problem-solving experience and a way to learn more about the Internet. And at the same time, it offers us a way to reduce cost.”

“We have many customers who are experienced, sophisticated users of the Internet. They are very smart, they have been our customers for many years, and they are always ready to try new products. We also have an increasing number of new Internet users, who may want only a connection and an e-mail account. So we must constantly maintain balance. We must continue to offer easy-to-use innovation—not only in the products we sell, but also in customer service. Motive technology helps us maintain the perfect balance between innovation and easy-to-use self-service.”

The quality of Tin.it customer care is recognized throughout Italy, and the company’s innovations have won many awards. For example, Tin.it received the prestigious “Best Contact Centre of 2001” award for “...implementing an innovative multi-channel approach to the contact centre, reducing operational cost and increasing customer loyalty.” In 2003, the leading survey company in Italy researched customer attitudes toward Internet service providers; Tin.it customer care was described as the best for technical competence, Web support, and overall customer satisfaction.

Building Self-Service into the Product
As part of its customer-care evolution, Tin.it has made two important advances: self-service delivered via Motive software on the customer’s PC and self-service delivered via the Web.

In early 2003, the falling prices of broadband service were attracting an unprecedented number of new customers to Tin.it. These relatively inexperienced customers imposed a costly burden on the company. As a result, the company recognized the need to adjust its service management infrastructure to become more scalable. It also recognized that Motive technology could provide the scalability. “Motive’s built-in service technology is the right way,” says Di Perna. “It’s the only way to interrupt the linear proportion between increasing customer base and increasing operation costs.”

Working with Motive and Motive’s Italian system-integrator partner, Bizmatica, Tin.it deployed “HelpExpress,” a highly automated self-service capability that relies on Motive software. HelpExpress made its debut on July 14, 2003. It was an immediate success.

Deployed in Italian, HelpExpress guides new broadband customers through the necessary steps to automatically qualify and activate their PCs for ADSL Internet services. If customers encounter problems, the Motive technology automatically resolves the problems or offers electronic information to help customers complete the process without having to contact the call center.

During the second half of 2003, Tin.it closely monitored the performance of all HelpExpress processes; the company’s targets were met. Adoption rate and customer satisfaction increased, customer churn decreased, and subscriber acquisition and assurance costs fell by over 15 percent.

Regardless of that success, Tin.it continued to survey its customers, asking for suggestions for improved service. All the customers who were actually using HelpExpress were very satisfied. Other customers reported something very interesting: when they encountered an ADSL problem, they did not remember that HelpExpress was available on their PC.

Building Self-Service into the Web Site
Those reports caused the Customer Care team to think further about its service management approach, and how well it suited the actual behavior of customers. “For example,” Di Perna asks, “When customers have problems, but don’t remember that HelpExpress is there to help them, where is the first place they go? Our Website. Then, if they can’t find the solution or answer on the Web site, they pick up the phone and dial our call center.”

Then the team had a smart idea: merge the intelligence of the Motive software with the Tin.it Web site. Except for connection problems, it would give customers an easy-to-use and powerful solution that would eliminate many unnecessary calls to the call center.

Di Perna recalls the day he suggested that radical idea to Motive and Bizmatica. “Motive was immediately optimistic about the efficiency of the approach. Bizmatica, which of course would be responsible for the actual integration, was cautious at first—they wanted to be sure that they could serve us well. But after the first implementation of the Web approach, both companies agreed that it was a good way to go. And after two or three months, they became very enthusiastic.”

The implementation of the new approach was swift, thanks to the support and documentation provided by Motive and Bizmatica, says Di Perna. “I am very pleased with Motive. They gave, and they are still giving us, great support. “

The new Web approach produced dramatic results. Overall, the number of calls for assisted service was reduced by 10 percent, and the number of calls for assisted service for e-mail problems was reduced by 70 percent. Adoption of Motive self-service increased 10 percent and usage increased 30 percent.

Customer attitudes were equally positive. In an online survey, more than 95 percent of customers said that the Web approach was easy to use, and more than 80 percent said that they were able to solve their problems without any assistance. For example, one customer said, “I go to the Web page, it automatically understands and shows me my problem and...fixes it. It’s incredible.”

“The goal of easy-to-use self-service seems to have been reached,” says Di Perna. “I’m very proud to be working at Tin.it. With my colleagues, we have built one of the best customer care process in Italy.”

The Next Big Idea
However, Di Perna and his colleagues are never completely satisfied with their success. They continue to survey the customer base for information and new ideas that can help the company tailor its customer care even more closely to customers’ attitudes and behavior. The company conducts an online survey every month, and a telephone survey (via an Italian company that specializes in telephone surveys) every quarter.

Di Perna is currently working on several new ideas; the biggest one is the idea of moving all of the remaining Motive technology to the Web. “The original Motive-based solution had two goals,” he says. “One was to solve e-mail and Web-service problems via self-service. The other was to solve connection problems via self-service. The new Web approach is a more effective solution for e-mail and Web-service problems, but we still have work to do on connection problems.”

The intelligence for solving connection problems via self-service still remains on customers’ PCs, but Di Perna wants to integrate that remaining intelligence into the browser. Then, if a customer can’t connect and reach the Web site, the browser will display a page that can help the customer solve the connection problem without contacting the call center.

“Everything will be transparent to customers,” says Di Perna. “Customers will not have to download or install or use any client, but only to surf the Web and fix their problems without wasting time. This will also enable us to provide assistance to users of the Web who use our services but aren’t our customers. Easy-touse self-service is the winning strategy!”

Motive will help implement the idea. “Motive has been with us since 2003.We have always felt good about them. They support every new idea. We have never heard the word ‘no’ from them. We have good ideas for innovation, and they are the best partners for converting our ideas into realities.”