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British Telecom: Reaching out to customers

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CIOL Bureau
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With the advent of computer databases, there is no longer a dearth of data in

any organisation. Every transaction, every process, every interaction can be

captured and fed into a computer in real-time or otherwise. However experience

shows that such data seldom yields any information that is useful when dealing

with customers. Such data if structured and organised carefully can yield

interesting insights into the preferences and profiles of your customers.

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Such capabilities in your company’s database are crucial to the success of

concepts like Customer Relationship Management and Business Intelligence.

In-depth knowledge of your customer, his or her preferences can help your

marketing, sales and support personnel target their campaigns and pitches more

effectively and pointedly. Knowledge of your customers and their needs and the

ability to step in with offerings that meet those needs at the right time is

becoming a key differentiator in today’s highly competitive world of business.

Large organisations from industries like finance and telecom are vast

storehouses of data. As monopolies fall, competition revvs up and customers get

choosy, these companies need to get closer to their customers despite their

size. The answer lies in making use of the humongous amounts of data that come

in with every subscriber, every call made or every transaction. And key to

making use of this data lies in organising the data into structured data

warehouses. Here they can be easily and effectively accessed by various people

in an organisation as well as queried to answer specific questions.

British Telecom, UK’s leading provider of local and long distance services

and equipment realised early on the crucial role that a data warehouse can play

in helping it obtain and retain customers. The company partnered with Oracle the

leading database company in the world to help organise its data more effectively

so that various sales, marketing and support staff could access information

about customers, their history and profiles and more easily. Using a data

warehouse BT has created a vast storehouse of data that replaces its earlier

diverse databases that worked on varied platforms and technologies. The legacy

system had been falling short in giving a unified picture of the customer.

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BT realised that effective Customer Relationship Management is a two way

process. All information coming in to the organisation through BT’s various

call centers go into the data warehouse to change, fine-tune and update

information related to its customers. In turn, information going out to the

customer in various forms — campaigns, direct mailers etc are tailored to meet

specific customer needs based on information mined from the warehouse.

The data warehouse is centrally located and available across the enterprise.

Such a data warehouse offers an integrated, total picture of the customer,

unlike the earlier dispersed databases that offered a more fragmented picture.

Secondly, such data is not restricted by department but available across the

company. At the same time it is more cost-effective for BT to maintain the data

warehouse centrally based on Oracle technology rather than scattered databases

running on different technologies.

Mind you the amount of data one is talking about is no joke — it does not

measure up in megabytes or even gigabytes but runs into a couple of terabytes!

An organisation like BT cannot afford to treat such vast amounts of data

callously — they are veritable treasure chests. BT has an ongoing relationship

with Oracle which helps it leverage on newer technologies while simultaneously

coping with the increasing amounts of data that keeps flowing in by planning for

the future.

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Meanwhile this constantly evolving datawarehouse provides comprehensive

information on customer behavior that helps shape marketing campaigns at BT. At

the same time customer facing employees at call centers and help desks are armed

with customer information that helps them understand and serve each customer

better. No mean task for an organisation like British Telecommunications that

totes up an annual turnover in excess of 21,900 million pounds and serves over

28 million exchange lines.

Telecom companies across the world are facing the pinch of deregulation and

privatisation. As monopolies break down these typically large monolithic

companies would do well to make sure they are not weighed down by their size. To

be able to take on the smaller and more adroit competition they would need to

adopt technologies like data warehousing to understand and serve their customers

better. Technology can help knock down the hurdles imposed by size and put them

on par with the new entrants.

BOX — Some facts about BT’s services



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BT's PhoneNet service - the online directory - handles over one million
enquiries per week



BT carries more data traffic than voice over its UK network


On average, about 94 million UK local and national calls are made every day


BT and its joint ventures have more than 46 million customers outside the UK


In the UK, BT operates 28.5 million customer lines - 20m residential and 8.5m
business



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