Enhancing Nigerian Telecommunication Customer Service Channels Using Self-Service Software Model

Abstract

Until recently, the most common methods used by Nigerian Telecommunication Operators for providing services to their customers include: customer service centers and online channels. With the rapid increase in the number of customers, the existing channels of responding to customers queries through walk in centers and online customer agent cannot be adequate due to the time required to respond to each customer’s queries. Hence the need to provide an alternative channel that will often provide faster, reliable, convenient, less expensive and most affordable customer service. In this paper, a self-service model was developed for Nigerian Telecommunications Operators to improve customer service delivery. Self-Service Software Model (SSSM) allows customers to request for specific services without interacting with customer care representative at their own convenient time and have these services delivered to them within a short period of time. SSSM was designed using Model-View-Controller design pattern and implemented using Hypertext Markup Language, Cascading Style Sheet and MySQL relational database management. The prototype of the SSSM was tested with data collected and analysed from three Telecommunication subscribers in Nigeria. The results of the study showed that the model allows customers to request for specific services at their own convenience in a timely manner and it is faster, reliable, less expensive, and reduces cost of maintaining hardware, software and overhead cost of existing customer service delivery.