Customer service representatives should not be eliminated entirely. A better strategy would be to cut staff in areas in which technology is better adept in providing solutions. This area is the troubleshooting of hardware and software devices in which the complexities of human language and human understanding hold less importance. 

With the current trend to cut traditional TV service for online streaming services, discarding landlines for mobile and IP phones,  and the adoption of IoT devices, the internet - and more specifically the router - becomes the single point of failure with the greatest potential for improvement now and in the future. 

Our strategic analysis was supported by survey responses and multiple in-person interviews with customers and customer service representatives. These interactions brought about the following insights that guided our design:

1. Connectivity and equipment problems are the top issues customers call customer service about followed by payments, and changing their plans.
2. On average, customers spend between 10 and 60 minutes trying to fix a problem by themselves after which time they call customer service. 
3. Uninformed or incorrect user intervention causes additional issues for customer service representatives to fix.
4. There is a language barrier between customers and customer service representatives in describing technical issues and how to solve them. 

These insights confirmed the direction suggested by our strategic analysis and defined our core which was to reduce customer service representatives and technicians by empowering customers to troubleshoot the problems themselves without needing additional technical knowledge.

Our solution was to remove the need for customer service representatives involved in troubleshooting internet services for smartphones users. In creating an application that looked past the current trend of chatbots, to the realm of full automation, we were able to address a major cause for calls to customer service, the demands of remote troubleshooting for representative and customer, and minimize truck rollout for extreme situations. 

THE CONNECTION

ADDRESSING TRUCK ROLLOUT

This solution addresses the issues of expensive truck rollouts in the following ways:

1. Problem with the line external to the house - Dispatches a technician.
2. Hardware problem with a Martin Telecom device - Directs customer to nearest store to exchange equipment or print shipping label.
3. Hardware/software issue with third party router or device - Recommend customer contacts appropriate company customer service.

To ensure the success of this solution customers needed to be notified of these new features as well as the improvements they represeted. For customers with Martin Telecom routers, a one time per device redirect to a new feature page would occur when connecting to their network. For everyone else, automated phone calls and emails could alert them to the new features. 

Deployed today, this solution would only affect a small population of internet users with USB interfaces on their router but over time it will expand its reach. In providing USB to ethernet adaptors to retrofit devices and new Martin Telecom Routers with USB interfaces we can reduce the need for customer service representatives. Additionally, as Martin Telecom is best adept at servicing their own devices, the rental fee currently pushing many customers to buy third party routers will now be seen as a maintenance fee. In making this assumption and providing extra value to its customers, Martin Telecom is predicted to increase its revenue by selling more Martin Telecom devices while decreasing their overall expenditures.