With today’s insatiable appetite for high-speed broadband, technicians are up to their necks in a rising tide of complexity, with services such as plain old telephone service (POTS) quickly becoming a thing of the past.

In the midst of the market’s fast evolving technology, it’s easy to forget that essential tools for the front line technician are advancing rapidly as well. By empowering frontline technicians with the right tools to diagnose and correct problems quickly, service providers can better position themselves to provide the best possible service.

If your technician’s tool belt hasn’t been top of mind, here are 5 reasons that small decisions on the front line can make a big difference when it comes to delivering satisfied customers and cutting edge services -- and improving the bottom line at the same time.

1. Cost Pressures
As the world economy continues to churn, price pressures for all industries are driving up costs big and small. Today’s more advanced tools can help control costs by:
• Requiring less training.
• Diagnosing problems more quickly (thereby saving additional truck rolls and getting service back up).
• Improving the efficiency of field staff.

2. Limited Expertise
With telecom technologies in a constant state of flux, training requirements can be overwhelming as technicians try to remain up-to-date on the latest and greatest technology. This often results in only a handful of technicians being fully trained.

Fortunately, many of today’s new tools offer simplified, one-button interfaces that are easy and intuitive to use, and that don’t require extensive training. It’s a fine balancing act that starts with simple tools that can diagnose complex issues without requiring large amounts of training by technicians. By putting less of an emphasis on tribal knowledge with a handful of technicians, telecom companies stand to save significant amounts in both training and overall workforce savings. Investing in technology upfront means less of an ongoing investment in technician training down the road.

3. Diagnostic Speed
The need for diagnostic speed during a service outage is essential for a couple of important reasons:
• The longer a network is down, the more customer attrition a company will experience.
• The longer it takes to diagnose a specific problem, the more technicians are needed to service the overall network.

With diagnostic tools that make it simple to understand and interpret complex data, technicians spend less time diagnosing and more time fixing problems. As a result, network downtime is minimized, improving customer retention rates and increasing customer satisfaction (more on that in a moment).

As for maximizing a technician’s time, in research conducted by Fluke Networks in coordination with a number of telecom providers, roughly 50 to 60 percent of an average technician’s time is spent diagnosing, repairing, and servicing telecommunications lines. With sophisticated telecommunications tools that speed up the diagnoses, more of a technician’s time can be spent on their primary job functions: repairing and servicing.

4. Sophisticated Network Challenges
As previously mentioned, there seems to be new technologies added to telecom networks every day, from VoIP to IPTV to new broadband standards, and more. Of course, all of these latest and greatest advancements revolve around a fatter pipe (i.e., fiber).

With this increase in network complexity comes an increasing need for better end-to-end network visibility. Solutions providing a full picture of network operations enable techs to rapidly identify issues, and more quickly and directly address impairments. End-to-end visibility also enables technicians to isolate problems before they escalate into major headaches.

And, with improved visibility, service providers can more efficiently manage workforce resources and better prioritize service and repair. Pinpointing problem areas also contribute to cost benefits, since quickly isolating a network degradation or breakdown means less time is wasted hunting needlessly throughout a network to diagnose a problem.

5. Demand for Perfect Service
Let’s face it: Without customer satisfaction, no matter how lean you make an operation you’ll be out of business eventually. It’s really a simple matter that everyone in the service provider industry preaches, but might not necessarily practice. If your customers experience prolonged service outages, they will go somewhere else. And, if service is lost for a prolonged period of time, this means refunds for customers and a tax on the contact center, potentially costing the provider millions of dollars.

With more sophisticated tools, network problems are diagnosed in a matter of seconds. With products like Fluke Networks’ Fiber OneShot™ Pro, problems on 15 miles worth of fiber can be diagnosed in an instant, meaning an outage can be corrected immediately. This contributes to reducing the probability of customer attrition or provider penalties, and helps the telecom provider concentrate on its business first and foremost, rather than worrying about networks going down for an extended period of time.

In the end, sophistication equals simplification. Providing frontline service technicians with test and measurement tools that are simple to use, yet sophisticated enough to handle increased network complexity, helps with higher productivity and improved customer satisfaction. Combined, this translates into cost savings. In these tough economic times, where a fraction of saved costs can make the difference for service providers, technicians’ tool belts are a needed weapon in the ongoing battle to stretch profit margins.

 Paul Alexander is a marketing product line manager at Fluke Networks. He has more than 11 years of experience in the communication service provider, tools and test sets industries. Paul can be contacted at paul.alexander@flukenetworks.com. For more information, visit www.flukenetworks.com.

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