IST is the customer experience technology experts that act behind the scenes, helping our telecom clients to acquire more customers, improve customer retention, whilst increasing operational efficiency.
IST is an award-winning customer experience systems integrator. This means we provide specialized technology solutions that will enhance the customer experience. Established in 2002, IST is now the market leader in delivering customer experience solutions within the Middle East, having six office locations and employing over 200 skilled engineers. IST has completed numerous key customer experience projects with STC, VIVA, Mobily, Etisalat, Zain and Virgin Mobile KSA. IST's most recent project with Zain KSA resulted in monthly IVR income increase from SAR 80k to a huge SAR 2m - that's an income increase of 2,500% per month! IST offers a host of solutions that will help telecom organizations fulfil their business growth. Our most common projects include:
OmniChannel customer engagement center
In many cases, the customer engagement center is your shop front. Your customers judge your organization based on their experience during contact. IST customer engagement centers are designed to enhance the customer experience across multiple platforms including voice, web chat, web portal, email, SMS or social.
Sentiment analysis
Listen to what your customers are saying and think about your organization, then do something about it. Research shows that 93% of millennials use social media to voice their concerns and dissatisfaction. IST believes this to be the biggest growth area of customer experience for the next five years.
Digital cloud customer engagement
Removing the need for capital expenditure and the flexibility to scale up when you need to, cloud customer experience solutions can now handle enterprise deployments, despite being relatively new to the market. IST forecasts that in the next five years, many customers will switch to the cloud to improve reliability and cut costs.
Voice and speech enablement
Understanding customer speech and speaking to them will drive customer experience to the next level. Customers can listen to their account balances by asking the automated contact center. No more complex and cumbersome IVR menus.
Back office optimization
It is estimated that for every customer facing agent, your organization has three employees managing back-office tasks generated by customers. Workload distribution can automatically prioritize and distribute such tasks so all your valuable resources are used as efficiently as possible. Productivity will then be improved and employee empowerment increases meaning happier employees and lower staff turnover.
Trusted technology partners
IST has strong relationships with many leading customer experience providers, many of whom IST has worked with for over 15 years. Some of IST's partners include: Cisco, Genesys, eGain, Nuance, NovelVox, Verint and many more.
Working with so many partners is challenging. IST always recommends the best solution to solve our customers' business needs, even if it involves additional work for IST. For this reason, IST has established two R&D centers. IST is the only systems integrator in the Middle East to have done this. IST R&D was set up to create innovative solutions between technology vendors, meaning IST solutions can involve technology from many vendors, something that IST is very passionate about.
Industry recognized competence
With over 200 engineers, IST has the largest workforce dedicated to customer experience within the Middle East. In recognition of IST professionalism and project delivery excellence, IST is both a Cisco ATP (authorized technology partner) and Genesys Gold Partner. Both of these certifications mean IST has demonstrated exceptional product knowledge and has deployed successful enterprise solutions.
The customer approach - outside in
"You cannot build a good customer experience system if you do not understand the customer behavior."
IST always recommends products and services that are suitable for our customers' local market. A customer experience system for a retail customer in Saudi Arabia whose customers are over 50 years old will be very different from a retail customer in UAE whose customer base is between 18 and 34.
Population demographics and customer behavior plays a very important role when designing your customer experience solution. IST has up-to-date market research on customer behavior, including data such as: what devices do they use, when do they use it, do they call or use text, which social platforms do they engage with and how frequent. All of these factors play a big part in the solutions IST provides.
The Middle East has a big geographic area and its population, culture and language are all different. IST has deployed many large-scale projects in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Egypt, Oman, Qatar, Jordan and Turkey. IST understands the subtle differences between each demographic.
Affecting the customer lifecycle
Any customer in the world goes through the customer lifecycle when purchasing a product or service, the process of identifying a need, gathering information, purchasing and evaluating that purchase. In the telecoms industry, it is common for customers to shop around after their contract ends. This suggests the pre-purchasing stages are of greater importance. That's not to say customer retention is not important, but customers are likely to seek a cheaper deal in this price sensitive market.
IST has simplified the customer lifecycle into three categories:
Customer Acquisition (pre-purchase stages)
Customer Retention (post purchase stages)
Operational Efficiency (doing the above, cheaper)
Each telecom provider will have different business requirements; some may see customer retention as important and others would like to decrease their costs. At IST, we always try to understand what our customers want to achieve so the perfect solution can be created. For example, the following solutions can affect:
Customer acquisition
A well-designed customer experience platform on an OminChannel contact center will ensure you never miss an opportunity through whatever channel they are using. Combine this with sentiment analysis, and you can listen to your potential customers on social media and react when questions are asked about your services.
Customer retention
Providing exceptional customer experience is vital at this stage. Automated natural sounding Arabic speech engines coupled with voice biometrics can reduce customer call time and provide 24/7 assistance. Resolving customer complaints through prioritized workload distribution will ensure all issues are dealt with promptly.
Operational efficiency
Workforce management systems can organize your agents efficiently, taking into consideration vacation time, seasonal demand fluctuations, agent skills and previous history. This ensures your contact center is always optimally resourced. Combine this with workload distribution and any resource underutilized will be assigned tasks automatically.
The above is by no means a comprehensive list of our solutions. Please visit www.istnetworks.com for full list of products and services. And if a product is of service, simply complete the enquiry form and a member of our team will be in touch.
By Norman Liu - IST Marketing Director
