Tet improved the customer experience through automation

Launching a digital transformation journey

While digital technology and transformation have become primary elements of growth across a vast number of businesses and every industry, the burden is not consistent across every organisation. Previously traditional telecom companies have a particular responsibility to provide cutting edge digital services and so, any projects in this area must be undertaken with special care and keep an eye on the future. When Tet, a Latvia-based technology and entertainment business with variety of services such as TV, internet, electricity, consumer electronic retail, fixed voice, data centres and cloud services as well as others, decided to initiate its own transformation journey, it knew that customer expectations provided particular challenge that would require substantial expertise.

The enterprise partnered with Capgemini to ensure a successful transition to new technology and ways of working. Together, the partners determined that the full ambition of Tet’s vision could not be properly realised in one single effort and so agreed to break the project into three waves, each focused on optimising operations through lean processes and ways of working while introducing automation and merged systems. This common understanding provided the basis upon which the partners launched Wave One of the digital transformation journey, which focused on consumer electronics.

Incremental design ensures effective testing and release

This began with Tet and Capgemini participating in a series of strategic discussions to identify the specific business objectives they intended to address and the processes through which they would fulfill them. By the end of this, both organisations shared a common understanding that they would utilise this opening period to improve the customer experience and the ways of working that supported it.

“The customers are looking for a seamless experience,” says Dmitrijs Nikitins, Tet CTO. “They want to have a wider range of services and different bundles in their hands. We saw that we need to be able to deliver those experiences in an automated way so that our own colleagues can focus on the more value-adding part of their jobs.”

This meant providing a new approach to supporting customers who interacted with Tet through the organisation’s e-shop, MyTet self-service platform, call centers, and within physical shop locations. Once the partners had agreed upon this strategic approach, they began incremental High-Level Design (iHLD) to create a framework for the design and implementation of a sustainable solution that would take both business and technical needs into consideration. In doing so, Tet and Capgemini created a plan that would guide the first wave of the journey and set the foundation for further innovation afterwards.

Together, Tet and Capgemini then launched design and implementation by establishing the infrastructure for Vlocity, a Salesforce-based industry cloud software that would facilitate additional automation of the organisation’s customer service and order fulfillment processes. With the initial technical foundation in place, the partners then began to slowly introduce the software to a gradually expanding group of users in order to test for unexpected issues. This was then grown to include a select group of external customers that tested the system by placing orders through the Vlocity infrastructure. In the meanwhile, the partners simultaneously managed a data migration that included an initial load of products, customer accounts, billing accounts, and contacts.

“We chose scaled, agile framework as the backbone for our new way of working,” explains Agnese Lubgane, Operational Program Manager at Tet. “We built a supporting system with predictable rhythm, activities, transparency, to ensure that a lot of teams work together for a common goal.”

Finally, in preparation for the impending launch of the new approach, Tet and Capgemini managed a set of trainings meant to hand over processes to the relevant employees. In these sessions, Capgemini experts taught designated users from Tet how to function within the new ways of working so that they would be prepared for the coming transition. However, the organisations made these sessions far more impactful by following a “train-the-trainers” approach. Instead of having a large stream of Tet employees personally attend training with Capgemini, the selected trainees from Tet instead applied their newfound expertise and were then able to perform the remainder of the educational experience themselves.

Digital transformation gains momentum

At the conclusion of Wave One of the digital transformation journey, Tet and Capgemini launched the new processes across the organisation’s online platforms, call centers, and retail locations. By introducing automation throughout the system, the partners managed to eliminate a substantial amount of manual work. This in turn allowed employees to more frequently spend their valuable time on tasks that provided more value-add to the business. Finally, the structure of the training program ensured that Tet enjoyed a structured and quality-assured business continuity. Doing so has ensured that the organisation has improved its ability to support customers while simultaneously making the employee experience greatly improved.

Of course, this is just the beginning of Tet’s digital transformation. While the first wave has delivered on the vision of innovation and a more effective customer journey implemented through consumer electronics, the organisation still has much more goals to accomplish in the future. Following waves will build upon these achievements and focus on other business lines, including electricity, broadband, television, and voice services, by expanding the Velocity platform, further engaging customers, continue to improve the Lead to Order (L2O) processes, and improve billing and revenue management. “It was quite a challenging for all the involved parties, but we were able to find the most optimum way how to operate as One Team towards One goal”, says Marija Gaidukova, Digital Transformation Director, Tet. Together, Tet and Capgemini will continue to apply their expertise and mutual ambition to ensure that telecom customers experience an innovative journey supported by digital technology.

“This is unique digital transformation to enable growth beyond Telecom Services and to launch innovative business models. This transformation will enable E2E digital processes for consumer electronics, electricity, telecom services, internet, TV, and entertainment business lines. The aim is to improve operational efficiency, faster product to market, automation, and an excellent experience for customers and end users. We are thankful to Tet for choosing Capgemini as a partner to drive this digital transformation.”

Sanjay Beloshe, Nordics Telco Head at Capgemini

For more information, please contact:

Sanjay Beloshe

John Jorgensen, Delivery Executive

Manoj Ghag, Telco Expert and Architect

Darshan Lakhani, Engagement Manager