Microsoft today announced that Telecom Argentina is deploying Microsoft Customer Care Framework 2005 to improve efficiency and revitalize obsolete support systems in six of its trouble-ticketing call centers across the country.

The deployment is expected to be completed by November 2006.

The six call centers implementing Customer Care Framework specifically handle customers experiencing technical difficulties and traditionally have used up to 25 support applications to manage up to 10,000 customer requests per day.

Telecom Argentina divides its customers into six market segments: residential and small business, Internet service provider (ISP) customers, wholesale, enterprise, an internal Network Operations Center (NOC), and its own IT help desk, each with its own call center.

To date, any customer query that crosses more than one domain would be transferred between the relevant call centers to be resolved. For example, if a small-business customer has a problem with its fixed line and ISP services, the customer will need to interact with at least two call center agents before the problem can be resolved.

"This is not an ideal situation, and ultimately our aim is to reduce the volume of calls and call transfers by integrating all of the necessary applications, enabling a single customer services representative to have one view of the customer and close down any query quickly," said Gabriel Serralta, IT manager of Telecom Argentina.

"Using Microsoft's Customer Care Framework will enable us to reduce the average call-handling time but also significantly improve our operational efficiencies in terms of time and cost. In addition, we are able to build a flexible, scalable service-oriented architecture, which helps us become less segregated and more customer-focused," he added.