We are presenting a joint webcast on
May 12th at 2:00 pm E.S.T., with Telcom Consulting Associates (TCA)
on CPNI: What is it and how to use it to increase sales? Be on the
lookout for more information.
Karen Twenhafel, Regulatory Consultant
for TCA, has provided the following brief educational background on CPNI.
Please remember that this is intended to be a general overview and should not
be considered anything more than that.
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Afterthought…Lost Wheelbarrow…Reindeer Queen. What do these phrases have in
common? They are names of U.S. gold mines.
CPNI is the unusual name for a
gold mine that most LECs are sitting on, but don’t know it.
Customer Proprietary Network
Information (CPNI) is data specific to individual customers generated when
customers make calls. CPNI can include such things as the numbers your
customers call, the percentage of interstate to intrastate calls, and (with a
little detective work) your customers’ ISP. CPNI does not include subscriber
list information or any customer information where you cannot identify which
customer produced which data. So by mining CPNI
generated every day, you can have access to information that will make your
marketing campaigns more focused and effective.
LECs that have used CPNI in
marketing plans report a dramatic increase in take rates. One LEC, after
using CPNI to determine the pricing and components of various package bundles,
reports a 35% take rate. One year earlier, the LEC had marketed similar
bundles without the benefit of CPNI. The take rate? Seven percent. Other
LECs use CPNI to help in determining future services and focus groups. One
has even used CPNI to prioritize network upgrades. In short, CPNI offers a
rich vein that LECs may use to hone the competitive edge.
As with most tools in a regulated
industry, using CPNI requires compliance with rules. LECs have a duty to
notify customers prior to using CPNI, allow customers to restrict the usage of
their specific information and generally comply with various regulations
issued by the FCC and (possibly) state commissions. While at first glance,
these rules seem like an insurmountable mountain, with a bit of effort, the
rules quickly become a molehill.
In simplest terms, the
regulations are easy to summarize. When using CPNI for marketing purposes, a
LEC must first provide notice to its customers and allow customers the chance
to either say “OK, you may use my CPNI” or “No, please do not use my CPNI.”
Of course, no regulations are that easy, but a LEC that takes the time to
understand and comply with the CPNI regulations will find great rewards.
The type of approval or disapproval your customers give you
depends on what you want to do with CPNI. If you want to use CPNI to market
communications-related services, including Internet access, then you only need
to give your customers a chance to opt-out, or say “No.” If a customer has
not explicitly told you “No,” you are free to use that customer’s CPNI for
marketing purposes. If you want to market non-communications-related
services, like a security system, then your
customers must opt-in to the process by specifically saying, “Yes, you may use
my CPNI.” Opt-in approval is much more difficult for a LEC to obtain due to
the explicit nature of the approval. As opposed to opt-out approval (where a
customer’s approval is assumed if you do not hear from the customer), a LEC
can never assume that a customer is opting-in.
Finally,
the regulations do allow, under very precise circumstances, a LEC to use CPNI
for marketing purposes without approval from the customer. If you are
marketing upgrades to a service that your customer currently subscribes to,
then you may use that customer’s CPNI without approval. For example, a
customer who subscribes to your long distance service calls in to discuss her
bill. The CSR may use the customer’s CPNI to upsell a different calling
plan. The customer’s CPNI may be used, even if the customer has opted-out.
However, if the CSR attempts to sell the customer Internet access service,
then the CSR has crossed the line and your LEC has broken the CPNI rules.
Here is a
cheat sheet that should get you started.
