RPA, a new standard for the Telecommunications industry

Let’s consider a European telecommunications service provider based in Spain with around 80,000 employees and 10 million customers. Because of the company’s rapid growth and high process volume, it struggled to execute streamlined processes and fully optimized customer experience. The biggest obstacles faced by the company included low levels of operational agility, inefficient information flows, and high operating costs (OPEX) and capital expenditures (CAPEX).

 

The telecommunications provider relied on multiple data sources, applications and operating systems running simultaneously to support operations. Significant amounts of data from network providers, engineers, sales representatives and customers were in incompatible forms, in both electronic and paper formats. Inconsistencies in data storage and management meant communication between different platforms typically occurred at sub-optimal levels, often taking up to 24 hours, and involved significant manual intervention on behalf of employees.

 

Furthermore, the telecommunications provider also struggled to keep control over expenses from maintaining data integrity and security, employee salaries, marketing and advertisements, and software & hardware costs. Inefficiently managing these costs meant not enough operational effort was put towards improving the customer experience, making the company un-deliver. Employees were unable to spend the time they needed to develop deeper customer relationships. The company often had to troubleshoot delays in service delivery to customers.

 

But there was a remedy. Highly customizable RPA provided the company with the power and tools to more easily manage their back-office workflow and deal with large volumes of repetitive and rules-based operational processes. The telecommunications provider experienced a 14% increase in productivity and was able to decrease the duration of data transfers to just a few minutes, which resulted in additional cost reductions totaling roughly €3 million annually. The company was also able to leverage RPA capabilities to drastically improve internal data communications as well as communications with customers. In support of the company’s call center, more than 95% of communications were automated and the average response time was reduced to 1.5 minutes, allowing for a significant boost in customer service offerings.