With a mobile operator in East-Africa C.a.T.S has introduced a mechanism whereby a (Short Message System) SMS is sent to relevant people on system errors.
"I have always been an advocate for fully utilizing the technology to automated procedures and tasks" According to Johan Grobler, Managing Director of C.a.T.S.
Johan Grobler continued, "Years ago we already made use of a fully in house developed system at Old Mutual in Cape Town. There we had checks in place following downloads, file processing, system availability etcetera. As soon as a problem occurred, the relevant people in our organization received an e-mail. We also monitored procedures and general system operation via e-mail".
Thus SMS was a natural progression for C.a.T.S. Once again the IBM (Interactive Voice Response) IVR platform enabled easy and reliable integration.
Severity levels were determined by C.a.T.S. with the operator. Also errors were defined and certain staff was assigned to the errors, thus only relevant people received the SMS`s. This addition enables C.a.T.S to monitor the system from South Africa via the mobile phones of their support staff.
"It is important for us to know of any system problem long before it becomes service affecting," Johan Grobler added. "SMS allowed us to bring the message quickly to support staff regardless of their location with a detailed severity level and error description".
The system also allows support staff to zoom in on the problem and saves time on trouble shooting and running through routine checks beforehand, due to the fact that IVR applications can be extensive and with integration paramount to its operation. On execution of a transaction on the IVR, a confirmation SMS is sent to the caller, detailing the transaction.
"It is also important for us to have the date, time and the subscriber`s number part of the SMS, again allowing us to push customer care to a new level. Thus allowing the mobile operator to follow up with the subscriber and remedy the query the person had," Johan concluded.
C.a.T.S., as an IBM business partner, focuses on IBM`s WebSphere Voice Response IVR solutions, integrated with WebSphere Voice Server and WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Portal Server. It is available on PC and RS6000 (pSeries) platforms, as well as operating systems like AIX, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows. Johan Grobler, a professional electronics engineer, founded C.a.T.S. in 1996 after spending two years at IBM in the Network Solutions team working on Voice Applications.
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