Comverse

Comverse Prevents Downtime with Proactive Service

- A NextNine Case Study

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Comverse

Comverse is a leading provider of software and systems that enable multimedia value added services in wireless and wireline networks. Today, over 400 wireline and wireless network operators in more than 100 countries around the world rely on Comverse. Their mission is to be the first choice of telecommunication service providers for solutions and services that enhance the total communication experience.

Comverse' Challenge
Comverse operates in the hyper-dynamic, converging telecom environment where continuous system changes, tough competition and new technology introductions are the norm. With subscribers being added on a daily basis, new systems and applications being integrated, upgrades and patches being deployed, service disruptions are almost inevitable. The estimated cost of an hour of downtime in a telecom system is in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars. To maintain a competitive edge, Comverse' customers constantly demand new, innovative value added services and feature introductions, but at the same time demand high system availability as well as rapid support at the lowest possible cost.

CHALLENGES  

Comverse's pursuit of excellence, not just in providing innovative Telecom solutions but also delivering best in class service and support, prompted their search for an effective and efficient method of responding to customer needs to avoid disruptions even in the complex and dynamic environment they operate in. Comverse needed a service and support solution that would address their specific, demanding needs, and help differentiate their services as well as increase customer loyalty while maintaining low service costs.

The Solution –

Remote Service Manager (RSM) powered by NextNine Service Automation
Based on NextNine proactive service approach, Comverse launched "Remote Service Manager" (RSM), an advanced service that enables solving issues at the symptom stage. Unlike reactive methods where the resolution process begins only after the problem had already manifested itself in the system, RSM proactively monitors and diagnoses issues at the symptom stage. Advanced alerts inform customer support engineers of problem symptoms, which are then resolved rapidly and at the root.

“We were able to prevent outages almost immediately after RSM was launched at customer sites. Using NextNine, we received alerts of critical issues at a very early stage so we can rapidly resolve them even before customers realize their existence. We focus even more time on providing best in class service rather than on hastily resolving problems. NextNine Service Automation’s proactive, automated approach truly improved efficiency and system availability.”
Ori Jacobowitz, COO, Comverse Real Time Billing Division

RSM, powered by NextNine Service Automation functions as a "Virtual Support Engineer" enabling Comverse to "be there" 24x7 to monitor complex, multi-unit customer systems, conduct automatic preventive maintenance routines on different types of systems at varying intervals and planned maintenance activities such as remote upgrades. Comverse continuously updates RSM with new rules and routines for monitoring and maintaining their systems and distributes them to customer sites using RSM's secure communication mechanism. RSM interacts with deployed units using various standard and proprietary protocols that don't require and agents or changes to the products.

NextNine Service Automation allows Comverse to access customer systems worldwide securely and at high speed as well as to view historical and current system data on every call, resulting in a significant reduction in Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), field visits and service costs. Furthermore, the unique data abstraction layer in NextNine's software facilitates Comverse in keeping RSM up to date with products in the field, even when products evolve with new versions and models, translating into savings in both time and costs.

RESULTS 

The Bottom Line
Within a few weeks of launching NextNine Service Automation based RSM, Comverse saw a significant increase in system availability. By deploying RSM throughout the installed base, Comverse was able to reduce emergency cases and provide their customers better, faster service and support. Comverse saves service and operational costs every day by minimizing time spent on critical problems, increasing efficiency of the support organization and reducing travel and communication costs.
By shifting to a proactive technical customer support, Comverse has joined leading companies around the world in redefining support, helping customers increase the value of their products while lowering total cost of ownership.