MiriMON® gives Digital TV broadcasters an unprecedented view of the service and experience that they deliver, from their customers’ perspective. Mirifice’s patented technology monitors the quality of the service delivered to the subscriber in the live network. If the quality falls outside an acceptable envelope the broadcaster is notified, with supporting diagnostic information. MiriMON® can even identify problems before the subscriber is aware of them.
The benefits of improving customer experience using MiriMON® are realized through reduced churn, improved customer acquisition and wider adoption of revenue generating services. MiriMON® information also enables more efficient customer relationship management, network management and set-top box management, thus reducing operational costs.
The following provides more detail on the benefits that a Network Operator will realise from a fully featured and highly integrated MiriMON® deployment.
Operational Cost Savings
Reduce Install Re-work
The MiriMON® Installation Verification application checks the basic functionality of the consumer device and the network connection to ensure that it has been installed correctly. This saves the cost of a second engineer visit required to rectify a poor initial installation.
Reduce Subscriber Fault Calls
The MiriMON® Self Diagnostic application, invoked by the subscriber, checks the basic functionality of the consumer device and the network connection and suggests fixes to try before calling the customer care team. In the event that a serious fault is discovered it provides a fault code to report to the network operator’s customer care team.
The MiriMON® Fault Alarms application will notify the operator of service problems, in real-time and with a customer impact analysis. This allows the network operator to identify and resolve network problems in advance of customer fault calls. Some consumer device problems can be addressed by remote configuration or by proactively contacting the subscriber with advice on using the service or caring for their device.
The MiriMON® Engineering Analysis Tool will assist the network management team and consumer device management team to resolve repetitive faults, which will impact on the number of customer fault calls.
Reduce Call Centre AHT (Average Handling Time)
The MiriMON® CSR Application provides remote diagnostics for the consumer device and the network connection. This helps the CSR (Customer Service Representative) to verify the reported fault without asking the subscriber to perform laborious manual checks.
Reduce Truck Rolls
Customer Service Representatives can avoid unnecessary set-top box swap outs if they have accurate information, from the MiriMON® CSR Application, that the fault lies elsewhere. The remote diagnostics provided by this application allow the Customer Service Representative to resolve some problems remotely, removing the need for some Field Engineer visits.
Reduce Truck Roll Duration
Visits to the subscriber’s home are pre-qualified: the Field Engineer is provided with a MiriMON® Fault Diagnostic Report for each visit. The engineers also can use the MiriMON® Installation Verification application to aid diagnosis and to confirm that the fault has been resolved.
Reduce NFF (No Fault Found)
A high proportion (generally 50%) of consumers devices replaced by Field Engineers are found to have no fault and are subsequently returned to the live network. There is a significant operational cost associated with swapping these ‘no fault found’ devices. Reducing Field Engineer visits and better diagnostics will avoid unnecessary device swaps.
Reduce Network Fault Resolution Time
MiriMON® can alert a network operator to some network faults that are not easy to detect using conventional SNMP-based equipment alarms. Information from the end user devices affected allows better root cause analysis, which enables quicker fault finding and problem resolution.
Revenue Assurance and Growth
Reduce Churn
It is widely accepted that poor service reliablity and QoE (Quality of Experience) are major factors in triggering subscribers to leave a network service. MiriMON® will have a significant impact on a network operator's churn statistics through improving the:
• Service reliablity
• QoE
• Usability
• Customer Care Experience
• Speed of fault rectification
MiriMON® can also assess whether a 'pay per use' service, like Video-on-Demand, was delivered to an acceptable quality. The customer can be compensated for poor quality, improving the customer experience.
Increase Subscriber Acquisition
Improving service and consumer device reliability, through QoE monitoring, will improve subscriber acquisition through a better reputation.
Increase ARPU
Improvements to service reliability, reputation and usability will encourage subscribers to use premium services. Increasing service availability provides subscribers with more opportunity to use premium services.
Reduce Fraud
MiriMON® can also provide valuable information to help network operators identify fraudulent activities.
Other Network Operator Benefits
Service Innovation
MiriMON® provides a broadcast network operator with the most important view of their service: that of their customers. This enables service improvement and innovation based on real customer usage and behaviour.
Management Metrics
Through web-based dashboards and weekly reports, MiriMON® can provide senior managers with:
• metrics on the QoE delivered to their customers, rather than network availability statistics
• real programme viewing figures, rather than extrapolated figures from a sample viewing panel
• metrics on Interactive service usage, such as Video-on-Demand, Voting, Shopping, Gaming and Gambling.
Technical Perspective
MiriMON® provides network operators with a new technical view of the components that make up the service they deliver, including:
• Consumer Devices
• Transmission Network
• Core Network
• Server Infrastructure
Device Maker Benefits
Reduce Field Support Costs
Device Manufacturers are generally required to support their deployed products through a warranty period. As network subscribers often associate the services they receive with the physical device itself, a wide range of problems are reported as consumer device faults. The cost of investigating these problems is significant.
The MiriMON® Engineering Diagnostics Tool can help a Manufacturer identify the root cause of reported problem remotely, avoiding the cost of a visit to the network operator.
Reduce Development and Testing Costs
MiriMON® can reduce the cost, time and risk of bringing a consumer device to market. MiriMON® monitoring allows critical diagnostic data to be gathered during integration testing, without compromising the software footprint or performance (unlike conventional de-bug software builds). In addition MiriMON® provides elegant reporting and analysis support that inproves testing efficiency.