Digital transformation: customer portals & dashboards

Trusted Advisor for IT & Telecommunications Sourcing

Self-service portals – the new customer expectation in the network industry

Why network operators need to provide transparency & control with cloud-inspired tools

Manual processes have long been the norm in telecommunications. However, with increasing digitalization, customers now expect the same simplicity that they are familiar with from cloud environments: full control, real-time insights and fast provisioning. A self-service portal is therefore becoming a decisive success factor for network operators and their fiber optic infrastructures.

This is how self-service portals increase customer benefits:

Customer portals & dashboards: Centralized management of all fiber services, orders, alerts and real-time performance analytics.
Transparency & efficiency: Detailed utilization data enables faster decisions and better cost control.
Automated support processes: Simplified handling of tickets, maintenance and fault reports.
API interfaces: Program-driven provisioning and integration of network functions for greater agility and quality of service.
As-a-service mindset: Providers continue to develop fiber optic offerings into flexible, software-driven services with open API architecture.

The question: If your customers expect self-service tomorrow – can you offer it today?

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In previous articles, we have already shown how network operators are supporting their customers through network expansion and Network-as-a-Service functions in order to realize their digital transformation.

In this article, we look at another important function that many customers now require: A self-service portal.

Although telecommunications is traditionally a complex business with a lot of manual intervention, providers are trying to give their customers more direct control and intervention options. The idea for this comes from cloud applications that offer customers a direct dashboard for provisioning, configuration and diagnostic functions.

Inspired by this, network operators and ISPs are striving to improve the customer experience. The idea is to make network provisioning as easy as cloud provisioning, even though some services will still require manual intervention.

The following section explains how this is to be implemented.

1. provision of customer portals and dashboards.

Greater flexibility and better cost control by organizing and managing your fibre optic networks in a single portal.

A portal should provide the following functions:

Place orders

Identification of problems by service and/or location

Display of service details: faster understanding of utilization and performance

Setting warning messages for capacity utilization

Better handling of repair tickets and planned maintenance

Carrying out capacity utilization analyses over time

2. provision of API interfaces.

This is another important area that network operators are investing in to provide a differentiated, outcome-oriented service to their customers. As we discussed in our second post, programmatic design of the network is an important part of supporting organizational agility and consistency. Whether you want to build on existing APIs for quoting and ordering or leverage new APIs for service delivery, providers’ efforts to build and improve APIs will make the difference in the future as organizations seek to offer fiber infrastructure “as a service.” All fiber providers will drive these areas forward and bring many innovations in this area to market.

In the next article, we will look at the topic of “Edge” and the question of whether network operators are part of it.

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