Syniverse Improves Operational Efficiency and Consistently Meets SLAs with Intelligent Automation

Automating number port requests accelerates service delivery from three minutes to a few seconds, eliminating 100% of the overtime hours required to manually process these requests

Mobile communications is a tough market to compete in. Mobile network operators (MNOs) are always slashing prices, offering promotions and doing whatever it takes to gain market share. Third-party service providers are often caught in the middle. Just ask the team at Syniverse, the largest provider of number porting services in the U.S.

If mobile users want to keep their old phone number when switching to a new mobile service, it is Syniverse that makes that happen. A technician receives the request from a Syniverse MNO customer and must manually submit it to another MNO—sometimes by an emailed PDF or fax—to port the number. The request typically contains relevant information, such as the phone number, username, address information, and other account details required by the new mobile operator. For the longest time, this was done by cutting and pasting each item from the Syniverse system into the trading partner’s graphical user interface (GUI) or a form. Given that Syniverse transacts thousands of port requests each day, this manual process was unsustainable and error prone, leading to occasional complaints about mistyped entries.

These challenges compounded when one of the big mobile operators would run a promotion to incentivize consumers to switch providers. This would cause a sudden high-volume influx of port requests and would require port center staff to work overtime to process the requests in a timely fashion impacting employee work-life balance.

“We work in a competitive industry,” said Bob Bruce, the Syniverse product manager responsible for processing porting requests. “We need to provide this service quickly to meet our customers’ expectations and to maintain our margins.”

Automating a Tedious Manual Process

It was clear that the porting process needed to be mechanized whenever possible. With support from a management team that wanted to cultivate a culture of efficiency throughout the company, Syniverse implemented Resolve’s enterprise IT automation platform. Resolve worked with Bruce and the porting team to identify and map out the individual porting processes with different carriers and then automate those processes with secure, pre-approved automations that met both best practice standards established by Syniverse subject matter experts, as well as compliance and governance controls.

Now, 65 percent of what used to be manual porting requests conducted by Syniverse are automated by Resolve. The platform pulls data from each port request and automatically populates fields in the porting application. As a result, the porting process has been reduced from three minutes to well under a minute for ports processed by Resolve.

As a cloud application, Resolve does not have to be managed by Syniverse’s information technology (IT) team, allowing the company to save on the costs of purchasing and managing underlying infrastructure. In addition, advanced security controls in the Resolve platform ensure personally identifiable information (PII) such as phone numbers, names, and addresses are not compromised.

Improving Customer Outcomes

Automating port requests allows Syniverse to reduce costs, improve customer service and expand its business. SLAs with MNOs are much likelier to be met, which helps avoid costly penalties and a hit on brand reputation. There is also a marked improvement in employee satisfaction. Reduced overtime has enabled Syniverse employees to have more time for follow-ups to ensure customer satisfaction, which in turn has a positive impact on the team’s morale.

The time saved also allows technicians to focus on other areas of their jobs—tasks that often took a back seat when all they had time for was processing porting requests. Now technicians can do quality assurance and troubleshoot any issues that do arise—valuable customer facing interactions that are so critical to a business dependent on providing quality service.

According to Bruce, the team is also able to spend time automating other port requests. Instead of only automating mobile operators with large volumes of port requests, his team can now use Resolve to easily automate smaller regional mobile operators too.

“We processed port requests, and we answered phone calls. That was all we had time for,” said Michelle Holt, Sr Manager Customer Operations, who started at Syniverse years ago as a Port Center Representative. In that role, she manually processed hundreds of requests every day before automation was implemented. “Now, [with Resolve], we’re able to do more follow-ups and troubleshoot issues that come up. This leads to greater efficiency and the opportunity to create additional automations that allow us to focus on strategic initiatives.”

“Automation is addictive. Once you have successfully automated one process, you start to look for other opportunities to gain even more efficiencies,” Bruce said. “Freeing up our time allows us to think outside the box and continue to grow the business without having to add staff.”