Rogers Communications gives data
customers the power of choice
“We have been able to provide a much better experience for our customers.
They are getting what they want, tailored to the device they have and they
know exactly what they are getting so there are no disputes, no credits and no
customer dissatisfaction.”
—Reade Barber, director for data services marketing, Rogers Communications Inc.
HP customer
case study
Internet usage tools
drive revenue
and significantly
reduce customer
support calls
Industry
Telecommunications
Objective
Capitalize on increased mobile data usage due to the
popularity of smartphone devices
Approach
Design a system to offer robust, transparent and
friendly data rate plans to meet users’ specific needs
IT improvements
• Reduced development cycles from between four to
six months to thirty days, shortening time to market,
and creating significant cost savings
• Integrated disparate customer data resources onto
one flexible platform
Business benefits
• Expanded unique daily and weekly data plan users
by 26 percent within the first year
• Increased average daily and weekly data plan
revenue by 17 percent despite a 30 percent decrease
in price point over the same period
• Achieved ten percent upgrade of daily and weekly
data plan users to a recurring monthly plan within
60 days
• Eliminated 98 percent of billing credits, saving
several million dollars per year
• Boosted customer satisfaction, eliminating 120,000
support calls yearly
With 8.6 million subscribers, Rogers Communications Inc.
is Canada’s largest provider of wireless voice and data
communications services. It also is one of the country’s
leading providers of cable television, high-speed internet and
fixed telephony services.
Rogers’ current daily data usage easily passes two billion
transactions compared to 50 million in 2008. The reason
for this increase, as well as 80 percent of current traffic, is
due to the boom in data-heavy handheld devices such as
smartphones, data sticks and tablet computers. In this
highly competitive market, Rogers Communications
needed to react quickly.
“One of the trends that we have seen is a rapid increase
in the amount of data that people are using,” says Reade
Barber, director for data services marketing at Rogers
Communications. “A lot of that comes from the popularity
of devices such as the iPhone® and BlackBerry®, and this
posed both a new opportunity and a challenge. We had to
find innovative ways to introduce data to people who do not
normally use it.”
Customer
solution at
a glance
Software
• HP Internet Usage
Manager
HP Services
• HP Solution Management
Support service
A common hurdle faced by all mobile operators is the ability
to launch new services quickly with the assurance of accurate
rate and billing functions. Difficult-to-understand plans
make customers wary of trying data services and potentially
unhappy with the billing for such services. In Rogers’ case, the
company also was restricted by an inflexible infrastructure:
costly and awkward customer information consolidation
tools, lack of automatic mobile device detection and an
inability to build rate plans or applications matching actual
customer device usage. Rogers needed to deliver the right
data plans to the right customers at a cost that the customer
could clearly understand.
Intelligently meeting
customer needs
Rogers first considered its exact requirements, as Barber
explains: “You have to visualize what you want the customer
to be able to do before you pick a technology. People fall
in love with technology when what you really need to do is
envision how you see the customer utilizing the application,
and then go out and find the technology that suits it best.”
For Rogers Communications, HP Internet Usage Manager
(IUM) provides an innovative, single-platform foundation for
supporting next-generation mediation and billing models.
HP IUM gives Rogers the real-time flexibility it needs to
deploy both current and anticipated data collection, tiered
pricing plans and charging services at a manageable cost and
which also complements its existing company infrastructure.
As HP IUM is a core component of Rogers’ data plan purchase
flow, HP 24 x 7 support guarantees that quick and accurate
action is taken in case any service supported by HP IUM
is impacted.
2
Getting the right data plan
to the right customer
HP IUM is a powerful repository of relevant customer
information available in real-time, allowing Rogers to offer a
variety of plans that are precisely suited to how its customers
want to use data. Rogers is able to detect which handset a
customer is using and offer the data plan best suited to it.
With ‘Data Plan by Device’, high usage devices such as the
Apple iPad® are offered higher usage plans – while ‘regular’
mobile users are offered smaller plans at lower prices.
Multiple device users have the option to tailor their plans for
their entire range of devices.
“Before implementing HP IUM, we were
handcuffed by our infrastructure. Now I feel
that we can explore different models and be
more creative in the future. We’ve seen a great
reduction in calls to our support center, a
reduction in credits, and an increase in the sales
of monthly subscriptions through the handset:
all quantifiable benefits of HP IUM.”
Reade Barber, director for data services marketing,
Rogers Communications Inc.
Rogers’ ‘Data Day Pass’ (DDP) plan specifically targets
customers new to data or non-monthly subscribers, and is
part of the customer information consolidated by HP IUM.
Using their own handset to purchase a pass in real-time and
without contact to Rogers’ support center, DDP gives users
the chance to test drive data usage and billing without risk.
First time unique users of data increased 26 percent in the
first year of DDP, and in total, Rogers’ DDP average revenue
grew by 17 percent within the same time period despite a 30
percent reduction in price point for the smartphone day pass.
“We are the only carrier that I know of in North America that
has been able to successfully implement a daily data plan
for customers who self-subscribe. It is very clear and easy to
sign up and provides a level of innovation and price that our
customers find very attractive,” comments Barber.
For a recent data sales campaign, Rogers used its
Promotional Capabilities Campaign tool. Developed with
HP and using its modular pricing capabilities, the tool is able
to work with existing customer profiles to pinpoint those
most likely to use data plans, and then push a real-time offer
through data pass intercept pages directly to the customer’s
handset. This upsell strategy is Rogers’ most successful to
date, with over ten percent of prior non-data users accepting
the offer.
HP also has greatly helped Rogers to reduce large
scoping exercises, allowing it to quickly understand how
new campaigns will work before implementing them.
Development cycles have been reduced from between four
to six months to thirty days, shortening time to market at a
significant cost savings.
“HP IUM has given us the flexibility to build offers to
suit specific customers based on their device and usage
patterns,” notes Barber. “Now it is very easy to build new
rules and plans as we see how customers use their data.”
Customer satisfaction high
Rogers has experienced drastic improvements in customer
satisfaction now that customers can control their data usage
plans in real-time through their own handsets, saving the
company several million dollars yearly in customer care calls.
“Customers can self-subscribe to their applications and
services and because people have certainty about what
they are buying, disputes and credits have been significantly
reduced,” notes Barber. “By introducing Data Day Pass,
we have seen a 98 percent reduction in credits – from
several million dollars per year to virtually zero – and
eliminated 120,000 calls into customer care per year.
“Before implementing HP IUM, we were handcuffed by our
infrastructure. Now I feel that we can explore different
models and be more creative in the future. We’ve seen a
great reduction in calls to our support center, a reduction in
credits, and an increase in the sales of monthly subscriptions
through the handset: all quantifiable benefits of HP IUM,”
concludes Barber.
For more information
To read more about HP Communications Service Provider
solutions, go to hp.com/go/csp
Get connected
hp.com/go/getconnected
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The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and
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4AA3-4944ENW, Created January 2012; Updated October 2012, Rev. 1