Thanks to Sofrecom, Mauritius Telecom proposes 'tailor-made' services to its customers

With Ga"ia, its new customer care and billing system provided by Sofrecom, Mauritius Telecom offers personalised services to each of its subscribers, starting with the invoicing.

Until yesterday the Mauritians had no interest in Gaia, the Greek goddess. Today Mauritius Telecom's new computing system carries her name. With the privatisation of the telecommunication sector three months away, this system represents an incredible commercial tool. The company and its 320 000 subscribers should very quickly benefit from the new system.

Yesterday morning, the subscribers visiting the Mauritius Telecom Customer Service centres (CSC) could test the system for the first time. When paying their invoices they can obtain any type of information from the agent's screen, all managed by Gaia.

Mauritius Telecom customers will notice another difference when receiving their next invoice. The invoice format has changed slightly to include new information. The invoice includes the overdue amounts, the last amount paid to Mauritius Telecom and also the VAT for each type of call. "The new invoice is more transparent and customers have all the necessary information," explains Viren Bissoonauth, Senior Executive of Mauritius Telecom.

The implementation increases the flexibility of the Mauritius Telecom commercial services and allows the operator to master the billing system permitting a better clientele segmentation. From now on they can offer "tailor-made" services to their subscribers.

The social subscription is one of the possibilities, proposed by Mauritius Telecom as part of the invoicing re-adjustment, it has been accepted by the Information and Communication Technology Authority (ICTA). Its objective is to protect the small consumers, especially the elderly or the underprivileged.

In addition, Mauritius Telecom will propose discounts for local and international communications.

Thanks to Ga"ia, MT's commercial team will be able to analyse the patterns of each consumer and subsequently propose suitable services and solutions. This "tailor-made" idea will, for example, even carry through to the level of invoicing. The Mauritius Telecom marketing message will change according to the subscriber. The professional will be informed of a service that is suited to him, while companies will become acquainted with other novelties.

At the dawn of the privatisation of the market, planned for January 2003, the flexibility of the Ga"ia System is a trump card for MT. The national operator will already have secured its customer base before the arrival of the competition.

One has to agree that the old billing system was relatively archaic. Calls made were registered on magnetic tapes, which were collected and sent to Cassis, Mauritius to be decoded. A call was invoiced one week later.

"Now we will be able to do it within a few hours," comments Guy Mayeur from Sofrecom. This subsidiary of France Telecom, Mauritius Telecom strategic partner, is known for having realised more than 2 500 projects of this type in about a hundred countries during the last 30 years. This particular project being carried out under the watchful eye of Sofrecom's Southern African branch based in Pretoria, SA.

Gaia is replacing two systems that have been running in parallel for more than 10 years.

This situation is part of the history of the company. Mauritius Telecommunication Services (MTS) was using the "Girafe" system while Overseas Telecommunications Services had based its operations on "Action II". The two companies merged in 1992 to create MT, but the systems remained unchanged. "Girafe" was used to control the network faults and to establish the customer's commercial profile. "Action II" was used for the billing, payments and the follow up of the outstanding accounts.

Ga"ia groups together all these functions and allows an almost unlimited development.

"This change was necessary as we no longer have 40 000 but 320 000 subscribers and our customer base continues to grow," says Megh Pillay, chief executive, MT.

Mauritius Telecom only launched the first phase of Gaia. It has already got rid of the magnetic tapes, as their transporting to Cassis is too risky. "If something had happened to one of these convoys, we would have immediately lost millions of rupees. We could no longer take such risks, whereas the new technology offers us a better alternative," explains Bissoonauth.