It’s 2018…Surely You Don’t Still Use Paper!

I’m a business customer of one of the world’s largest carriers. Last weekend, while on a shopping trip with my wife and “the boy”, I decided to go visit my carrier’s retail store and see about getting 2 new phones.

My first impressions were ok. It was a very mobile-centric store that had been newly refitted; it had plenty of space and a variety of different zones to transact. That said, it was a bit dull, had no “theatre”, and the live device experience was poor. 

I was looking to upgrade to the iPhone X. This is where things took a surprising turn for the worse.

Despite having a very professional and friendly business advisor, he promised to “see if he could get me the best deal” – very 1990’s language. Some awkward negotiations ensued, only, to my horror, to find out that I had to go away for 30 MINUTES while he did the transition of my tariff from one contract to the other and added the devices onto the account.

So, I went away.

After a quick wander around the rest of the centre with Mrs G and the boy-child, I returned 30 minutes later. He wasn’t quite finished – fine - but the kicker was when he then gave me 4 sheets of paper to sign! 

Paper! It’s 2018! 

After signing the ‘orders’, I also had to email him from my business account to ‘request’ the 2 devices. This seemed a bit un-necessary and bureaucratic, but hey ho. 

Then it was time to leave. Ok, bye.

Can you spot the GLARING ERRORS in the customer journey here? 

What if my experience was like this?

·      Greeting: While my advisor’s greeting was good, it could have been enhanced by offering some water or a coffee while I waited, or perhaps showing some interesting marketing materials or an in-store video while I waited. The store was very dull.

·      Fact Finding:  My advisor missed the chance to learn about his client. How do I find being a customer? What worries me (bill shock)? What do I do, exactly? The advisor was too caught up in the complexity of his system.

·      Transaction:  What if my transaction was a 5-10 minute experience? What if electronic signatures were captured then and there? And my ID was scanned in front of me instead of the advisor having to leave to go photocopy it? Imagine if my contract was emailed to me, along with a handy Walk Out Working email with links to account control, app stores, device FAQ and other benefits of being a customer? The paperwork I left with DIDN’T EVEN HAVE PRICING INFORMATION ON IT. It was a simple order form that hadn’t quite been completed on the system (still), as both copies showed my master CTN and not the secondary number too. I could tell there would still be work for the advisor to do in order to ‘massage’ the system.

·      Aftercare: Imagine if I was sent regular emails to help me settle into the new account. And texts and emails with SPECIFICS around delivery estimations…you get my drift.

I am shocked that a global carrier has such poor systems. 

With a plethora of bespoke Telco Retail Management Solutions out there, my experience could have been faster, digital and responsive. 

The Maplewave Difference

Maplewave’s Paperless solution transforms the customer experience.

·      No more endless trips back and forth to the printer, breaking rapport with the customer and harming your chance of closing or cross-selling.

·      Gone are the headaches of managing printers – out of paper, out of ink, jammed – all of these things cost you time!

·      Eliminate the bloated costs of running this infrastructure across your estate. If you multiply the cost of the number of printers you have - then add in the consumables cost of paper and ink –your bill is literally EYE-WATERING!

·      Say farewell to the costly storage of historic contracts, the health and safety worries of boxes of paper clogging up the office, and the transport and storage costs if you move them to a 3rdparty”.

Testimonials

Here are some quotes from advisors around the world who use our system:

·      “I used to order two cases of paper per month, and since Paperless, I am on one case of paper for the last 5 months!”.

·      “Paperless is part of our DNA”.

·      “Our back office is not full of paper anymore”.

And here are some quotes from advisors who don’t (yet!) have our system:

·      “It’s a real pain leaving the customer there – our printer is upstairs in the office, mind you it does keep me fit!”.

·      “We nicknamed our printer Ronnie Rattletrap as it keeps breaking down. Sometimes I could scream, and head office won’t order us a new one”.

·      “After a busy day, I have to spend at least 20 minutes just checking and organising my contracts so I know I haven’t missed anything or forgot to file them”.

Contact Us

Get in touch if you’d like to be part of our quest to remove paper from Telco Retail Stores! Paperless is easy to deploy, integrates in a wide variety of back office systems and it just, well, WORKS! 

Customers love it, staff love it, and you will too. It’s an easy ROI – and on average, our customers save over $1.00 for every transaction they process, be that pre-paid or post-paid.

Be part of our Paperless revolution today!