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BeVocal Secures MetroPCS As Customer for Integrated Self-Service Solution

Posted on: Wednesday, 5 April 2006, 09:00 CDT

BeVocal, the leading provider of hosted customer self-service solutions, today announced that MetroPCS has selected BeVocal to automate its customer service experience. BeVocal's suite of self-service applications moves beyond traditional Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to deliver an integrated, multi-channel solution for handset activation, customer care, intelligent promotional offers, and sales and fulfillment of add-on features. MetroPCS began deploying BeVocal's hosted self-service solution into select markets in March, with rollout to all of its markets scheduled during the remainder of 2006.

"BeVocal's solution enables MetroPCS to integrate customer service and add-on feature sales in a very intelligent, meaningful way," said Bob Young, Executive Vice President of Market Operations at MetroPCS. "We can now leverage the self-service system to deliver better customer care as well as smarter rate plans and add-on features via personalized offers tailored to customers' needs and preferences."

To learn more about BeVocal's self-service solutions, visit BeVocal booth # 5279 at CTIA Wireless, taking place April 5-7 in Las Vegas.

Intelligent Offers Enable 1-to-1 Marketing Campaigns

BeVocal's solution is unique in its ability to provide intelligent service offers based upon customer data. The system presents tailored promotions based upon the type of subscriber inquiry (activations, customer care, payments & refills, technical support, etc.), the specific user profile (rate plan, refill frequency, average dollar spent, features purchased, length of service, etc.), and purchase correlation ("most subscribers who bought this also buy that"). BeVocal's solution "learns" from each interaction, thus enabling successively higher attachment rates over time.

"BeVocal's self-service solution enables communications service providers like MetroPCS to transform their contact center into a strategic asset and a profit center by delivering new revenue opportunities with every customer interaction," said Mikael Berner, CEO of BeVocal. "The same self-service system that handles customer care inquiries can now deliver and fulfill targeted product promotions to specific subscribers or subscriber segments. This solution enables operators to drive unnecessary costs out of the contact center, deliver ARPU benefits, and improve customer satisfaction. It's a win-win for service providers and their customers."

"Carriers have spent billions of dollars upgrading to next-generation networks to enable a broad array of new content and service offerings, and they are banking on these new services to drive up subscription and per-minute usage," said Ken Landoline, senior analyst for Customer Centric Strategies at the Yankee Group. "But carriers must find a way to effectively market these new services to ensure widespread awareness and adoption. BeVocal's solution enables these carriers to leverage customer data to produce an unlimited number of narrowly-focused marketing campaigns -- a huge improvement over today's largely untargeted and inefficient bill inserts, store placards and magazine advertisements for new services."

A Mobile "Storefront" in the Phone

For subscribers interested in purchasing add-on products and services, BeVocal has created the Mobile Storefront application. Mobile Storefront allows subscribers to browse the products and services available to be added to their accounts, and provides them with information, pricing and instant fulfillment for these add-on products and services, such as ring tones, text or multi-media messaging plans, games, roadside assistance, and unlimited Directory Assistance.

The Mobile Storefront can be configured either as a stand-alone application with its own access point, or it can be integrated into 611 or the main customer care line to create a call-to-action response system to a marketing campaign. In the latter instance, a carrier can make targeted offers to subscribers during the customer care/611 interaction. Once a subscriber opts to learn more about the offer, they are transferred to the Mobile Storefront in order to purchase the desired service. The subscriber can also request updates on new products and special promotions via voice, SMS or email.

Self-Service Customer Care Without the Wait

BeVocal's Intelligent Offer Management and Mobile Storefront capabilities work in conjunction with customer care, providing subscribers with self-service access to a full range of integrated services. By automating complex customer care interactions, BeVocal is able to reduce customers' live agent calls by 75-90%, while putting an end to hold times.

Customer care self service capabilities include:

-- Balance & Refills -- the ability to check balances, refill minutes and pay bills

-- Account Manager -- enables subscribers to check on or change rate plans and features, voicemail PINs & passcodes, language preference, opt-ins (refill reminders, etc.) and personal information (credit card info, address, email, etc.)

-- Service Questions -- enables subscribers to obtain information on features, products, carrier store locations, coverage area and technical support issues

-- Activation and Reactivation -- enables new or suspended subscribers to activate or reactivate their handsets

-- Promotions -- Enables carriers to promote features and services for a certain time period to selected segments of its subscriber base

BeVocal's solution is both multi-channel and multi-lingual, available through various interfaces including speech, SMS, web, WAP and J2ME/BREW, as well as in English and Spanish.

About BeVocal

BeVocal is the leading provider of hosted customer self-service solutions for communications service provider and enterprise call centers. BeVocal's automated next generation solutions help its clients make the most of every self-service customer contact, enabling them to reduce the costs of customer care, increase revenues, and raise customer satisfaction.

Delivering a rich suite of integrated Voice, Web, and wireless data applications, BeVocal provides the only complete self-service solution for the total customer lifecycle. Clients can achieve immediate impact across all key business metrics -- including operating cost reductions, revenue increases, churn decreases, and elevated levels of customer satisfaction. BeVocal's award-winning solutions are deployed on a carrier-grade hosting network to answer, automate, and route customer self-service interactions across a variety of customer-selected self-service channels.

About MetroPCS Communications, Inc.

Dallas-based MetroPCS Communications, Inc., is a provider of wireless communications services. MetroPCS holds 23 licenses through its subsidiaries in the greater Miami, Tampa, Sarasota, Atlanta, San Francisco, Dallas, Detroit and Sacramento metropolitan areas. MetroPCS has 2 million subscribers and offers customers flat rate plans with unlimited anytime local and domestic long distance minutes with no contract. MetroPCS is among the first wireless operators to deploy an all-digital network based on third generation infrastructure and handsets. For more information, visit the MetroPCS web site at www.metropcs.com.

Source: Business Wire

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