How IHR Télécom Gained End-to-End Network Visibility and Cut Truck Rolls By 85 Percent

I recently spoke with Luc Brosseau, director of operations at IHR Télécom, a non-profit organization located in the Montérégie region in southwest Quebec, Canada. Since their founding in 2008, IHR has been committed to bringing high-speed internet access to remote locations that would otherwise remain unserved. With 2,200 kilometers of fiber built out, IHR today serves more than 5,000 subscribers in 23 communities, offering internet, managed Wi-Fi, TV, and voice services. IHR expects to complete their fiber network by the end of 2023, when they will reach nearly 10,000 households with their essential services.

We talked about how this has transformed their business. Through the combination of Calix Support Cloud and the Revenue EDGE™ platform, IHR has gained end-to-end visibility into their subscribers' experience, enabling them to adopt a more proactive approach to customer support. With the Calix solutions, including Calix Customer Success Services, IHR has cut internet-related support calls by approximately 90 percent, increased first-call resolution by 50 percent, and reduced unnecessary truck rolls by 85 percent. Luc shared how this has positively impacted the subscriber experience and gave a glimpse of the exciting managed services IHR plans to offer in the future.

For the first time, you have end-to-end visibility of your subscribers' home network-how has this impacted your support operations?

When we sell our managed Wi-Fi service, we're not just selling a router-we're selling support as well. Having end-to-end visibility of the subscriber experience, from the WAN to the gateway, Wi-Fi, and all connected devices, even down to the apps, has been a game changer for us. It's critical to have "eyes in the house" when we're trying to troubleshoot a problem for subscribers. This is particularly important with our subscribers, as many of them are older and less technical.

With Support Cloud, we're able to pinpoint the issue, whether it's that their devices are too far from the router or there's a problem in the WAN. Because we're able to diagnose and resolve most problems remotely, we've cut our truck rolls by about 85 percent. And for most subscribers, we're now able to address their problem in a single call-our first call resolution has gone up 50 percent. Our subscribers are happier, and we're freeing our support team to become more proactive.

Can you talk about the vital role of data in supporting subscribers?

With Support Cloud, we finally have a subscriber management platform that gives us the data that we need to effectively support our subscribers. We now have access to real-time and historical data, and we know that data is accurate. This has transformed how we are able to help our subscribers, both reactively and proactively. For instance, previously, we could not do speed tests in our platform. If a subscriber called us with a complaint about the speed of their network, we could not check it remotely-we had to send a technician out to their house.

Now we can not only run speed tests, but with features like the Subscriber Quality of Experience (QoE) Score, we can easily see-at-a-glance-if a subscriber is having an issue. Having these insights at our fingertips is helping us become more proactive, even though we're a small support team. We can identify subscribers that might be having a sub-optimal experience, and we contact them with suggestions to improve it, like relocating the router in the house or adding an extender. We prefer to take the time to call subscribers before they even know they have a problem, and they appreciate this level of support.

How has the combination of the GigaSpire BLAST systems and Support Cloud changed the subscriber experience?

Our subscribers are extremely happy with our managed Wi-Fi service. We don't track Net Promoter Score or customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, but I can say that we have very few customers calling with problems with their service. We've seen a 90 percent reduction in internet-related calls since moving to the GigaSpire® BLAST systems. Another indicator of the stability of the platform-our colleague that handles product returns didn't even know how to process one for Calix because there had never been a faulty system.

We're excited about introducing more services to bring even greater value to subscribers. We're introducing our mobile app based on CommandIQ® soon-this will let our subscribers control their home experience and take care of basic tasks that they might normally call support for, like changing their Wi-Fi password or running speed tests. We're also looking at offering services like home network security and connected-camera-based security.

Beyond delivering an exceptional subscriber experience, we're proud to bring greater value to the communities we serve. With access to high-speed internet and managed services, younger people are relocating here, helping to revitalize our villages. In partnership with Calix, we are living our mission of implementing projects that facilitate financial sustainability and economic, cultural, and social activities in rural and suburban sectors.

Discover how you can deliver an amazing subscriber experience while driving greater efficiencies in your support operations. Download our eBook "Making the Move to Proactive, Value-Enhancing Subscriber Support. "

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