Calix Research shows Wi-Fi Issues Driving Increased Service Provider Help Desk Calls

Sometimes, home Wi-Fi can be frustrating. At one time or another, we’ve all experienced weak signals and dropped connections for a variety of different reasons. If we’re technically inclined, we tend to try and fix it ourselves and, with a little trial and error, can usually get things back up and running without too much difficulty. For those that are less technically inclined, dealing with Wi-Fi woes means calling our service provider’s help desk.

If you’re the service provider receiving these calls, it’s problematic. First of all, unless you’re offering a Managed Wi-Fi service, your subscriber isn’t paying you to manage their home Wi-Fi network, so it’s not really something you should have to worry about.

Second, it’s pretty difficult to tell your paying subscriber that you won’t help them fix what they think is an Internet problem (even though it’s not), when they believe that it is.

Third, and most importantly, customer support is very expensive, especially when you don’t know what kind of Wi-Fi equipment they’re using and don’t have any visibility into their home network.

To get a sense for the extent of this problem among service providers, we conducted polls during our recent webinar, “Show Me, Don’t Tell Me: Real-world Benefits of Focusing on Subscriber Experience”. We asked the 104 service providers in attendance this question: “What percentage of your help desk calls are driven by Wi-Fi related issues?”

When we tallied the results, here’s what we found.

Overall, 64 percent said that Wi-Fi issues accounted for more than 30 percent of their help desk calls.
43 percent said that Wi-Fi issues accounted for between 31 and 40 percent of their help desk calls.
21 percent said that Wi-Fi issues accounted for 50 percent or more of their help desk calls.

What do these numbers mean? For a majority of the service providers polled, consumer reliance on Wi-Fi and the addition of numerous smart devices to the Connected Home means rising support costs. Considering that many of the service providers polled do not provide Wi-Fi services directly to their subscribers—nor do they charge for support—these results are problematic, if not exactly all that surprising.

One way to address the rise in Wi-Fi-related help desk calls is by offering a Managed Wi-Fi service. These services involve the service provider providing the home gateway and managing all aspects of the subscriber’s network to provide the best possible Wi-Fi experience.

All West Communications, for example, was facing challenges caused by consumer-grade Wi-Fi routers, so they launched a Managed Wi-Fi offer in March 2016. To learn more about the significant improvements that All West made to their revenue targets and support costs, watch the replay of our recent webinar “Show Me, Don’t Tell Me: Real-world benefits of focusing on customer experience”.

You can also watch a short, five-minute video featuring several employees from Consolidated Telcom in North Dakota. In the video, they explain how their Managed Wi-Fi solution has reduced their support call times and field technician deployments by half.

Looking to get your support costs under control? We can help!

Looking for ways to provide your subscribers with a better Wi-Fi experience and reduce your technical support costs?

We’re here to help. If you’d like to discuss the business case for Managed Wi-Fi services, get in touch today.