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Resolving the most common ISP customer support calls with SamKnows

ISPs are responsible for delivering broadband to the home, so what happens beyond the router is largely out of their control. But problems with in-home Wi-Fi account for over 50% of the support calls ISPs receive. So even though it’s out of their control, it’s an expensive problem that ISPs need to be able to empathise with and help resolve. Join us on a user journey showing how SingleView and RealSpeed can streamline support calls and improve customer experience.

Meet Hamza. Hamza is a fictional character we’re going to use to narrate the process of using our new product, SingleView - but he doesn’t know it yet.

Happy man is playing a football game online

Hamza is playing FIFA with his mates online. He’s not so great at the game, but that’s not the point. Suddenly, right after a world-class assist and right before a legendary goal, his screen freezes. Talk about letting the team down.

Happy man becomes sad because his game has been disconnected from the server

After rebooting his console and fiddling around with the settings, Hamza decides to call up his internet service provider to see what the problem is.

Normally, this call could be lengthy and, at times, frustrating - but luckily his care agent, Femi, has a SamKnows SingleView dashboard available to load up. Meaning, Femi can see all the info she needs to get to the bottom of the issue and help Hamza get back online to scoring (or not scoring) goals.

Femi, a customer care agent with a badass afro, looks at the sad man's internet performance on the SingleView dashboard

As Femi will know, the most common reason for customers to call support is problems with their in-home Wi-Fi. In the past, it's been a tricky call for care agents because customers don't always understand that Wi-Fi performance can vary within the home. Luckily, SingleView and RealSpeed were built to help solve this problem. Two products, both part of the same solution - Connected Home.

SingleView allows Femi to see a simple, one page overview of performance at the router, which helps her understand the quality of Hamza’s connection without having to create any charts or click around. In this instance, she can see that the service provided to the router looks good, so she can begin to investigate if there is a problem inside the home, on the Hamza’s side of the router.

Femi can then share RealSpeed’s URL and ask Hamza to run a test on his phone in the same location as his console, so that both her and Hamza can see the performance of Hamza’s internet inside his house. When Hamza runs a RealSpeed test, he and Femi can see the results at the same time - Hamza on his phone, and Femi on the RealSpeed tab of SingleView.

Testing in-home performance with RealSpeed

In this case, it’s clear that Hamza’s in-home speed is poor in comparison to the speed at the router. Meaning, the problem is with Hamza’s Wi-Fi not his ISP. Femi can explain to Hamza that the problem is unfortunately out of her hands, but can try and help Hamza understand some of the options available to help him improve his Wi-Fi performance. There are many things that could interfere with in-home Wi-Fi. For example, his router may have been pushed over and stuck behind the cupboard by his crafty cat, Sergeant FuzzWuzz.

uh-oh the cat knocked over the router

In Hamza’s case, Sergeant FuzzWuzz seemed to be the culprit. After scolding Sergeant FuzzWuzz and resituating the router back onto its original position, Hamza was able to go back to his console and run another RealSpeed test on his phone, to see if it made a difference to his internet speed. And wahoo! It has!

Sweet Wi-Fi all around the house again

While Hamza might still be a work in progress with his FIFA skills, at least he can get off the bench and practice more now that he understands where the issue lies with his internet. In the future, he can save him and Femi (or whoever picks up the phone) a lot of time just by checking on Sergeant FuzzWuzz’s path of damage, and in the meantime, he can pass on his praises of Femi and her ISP's help to his FIFA mates. Now, if Sergeant FuzzWuzz ever loses his taste for destruction and Hamza still has connection issues, he and the care agent will have a better understanding of how to fix his internet quicker.

Aside from the sheer joy from smashing her call quota of the day, Femi loves the feeling of helping a customer understand their internet better through the help of SingleView. Especially when she get's to hear anecdotes of scheming pets, and even moreso when she gets someone back to enjoying their internet service to the utmost, as soon as possible.

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