General Features and Functions

• Use of technologies such as OOAD, C/C++, and Java


• Source code, together with system documentation, to enable in-house enhancement and maintenance


• Provision of the name, source, type, and version of the customer care system or module


• Single view of customer activities based on integrating customer data across customer service interfaces, sales and marketing channels, and billing systems


• Design on a customer-centric model such that the client can focus on understanding and satisfying customer needs


• Hierarchical structure of customers, accounts, and services, such that each customer may have one, or more than one account, and each account may have none, one, or more than one service attached to it


• Maintenance of a common customer, product, and service database for multiple companies or service providers


• Detailed description of the system's features and capabilities, covering the functional requirements, supplemented with additional functions that the vendor may wish to include


• Flexibility in accommodating new services, service packages, discounts, multilevel customer hierarchies (e.g., account, the customer, subscriber), and others to support the rapid deployment of new services and offerings to new and existing customers


• Detailed description of the features and capabilities of the product pertaining to the above requirement


• Designation of user departments such as system administration, customer care call center, finance, billing, billing operations, roaming, fraud, credit and collections, etc.


• Graphical UI designed to be intuitive and easy-to-use, both in English and in other supported languages


• Secure sign-on for all system users. The system administrator can define whether a second password is required for particular facilities


• Web-based GUI


• Enforced completion of mandatory fields at all stages of a workflow to enforce data integrity, prior to passing the work order to the next stage


• User-definable validation rules for entry fields


• Effective mechanism by which customer and service management can be performed off-line as a secondary means to provide customer care input functions


• Workflow tasks that are assignable to specific users, user groups, or entire departments


• Configurable user defined default values for all recurrent data entry fields


• Selection from a drop-down list of the street, town, area, city, county, and region in the address fields


• Real time recording and amendment of lead information, prospect information, and customer information (including methods of ID used to open residential customer accounts where necessary), as well as the generation of relevant documentation that is required for completion by the prospect or the customer (such as a welcome letter or welcome order pack). Conversion of a lead to a prospect, and thence to a customer, is without need for re-keying the data. This means that the system has the ability to automatically pass information from a prospective database to the customer database.


• Multiple user-defined layouts that may include outstanding bills, disputed items, number of handsets, and payment program installments due or overdue. These layouts are customizable locally without the need to refer back to the system vendor. The user can customize the fields and lead texts of the layouts to suit different CSR categories