Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Chennai Telephones plans digital database

By N. Ravi Kumar

CHENNAI May 16. Chennai Telephones has embarked on an ambitious project to create a digital database pertaining to its subscribers including their signature.

The project work to be outsourced (a few days ago the BSNL entity invited bids for the purpose) would lay the ground for its proposed 50-seater call centre.

Scheduled to be commissioned in six months, the call centre would be a single-window solution to meet various requirements of the subscribers. Currently, Chennai Telephones' subscriber base is around 10.10 lakhs, while its equipped capacity is about 12.5 lakhs.

The digital database, a key component for the call centre operations, will facilitate speeding-up the subscribers' request, be it shift of phone or closure of connection or provision of ISD/NSD facility or value-added services, according to N. Mohan, General Manager-West and head of the information technology projects of Chennai Telephones.

The database will assimilate all information about each of the connection. From a subscriber perspective, the project intends to streamline the procedures, minimise the time taken for processing the requests and monitor their implementation at every stage.

Currently, the paper work involved in making such requests is enormous and antiquated in some cases, to the extent that the subscribers concerned have to get their signature attested by bank managers.

Besides this project, the authorities are working on another involving the creation of a Wide Area Network (WAN) linking all its offices.

The completion of the two projects will enable the subscribers to submit their requests and get them processed at any office of Chennai Telephones.

This will also lead to considerable decentralisation of the operations.

Apart from offering the operator-assisted facility, the call centre will function on the conventional Integrated Voice Response System (IVRS) mode and through the Internet too.

The target is to complete the two projects during the current financial year, says Mr. Mohan, adding that the tendering process for creating the WAN was initiated in April.

The range of services to be made available through the call centre will be expanded depending on the subscriber response, explains S. Pugazhendhi, Deputy General Manager-IT.

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