At-a-Glance Customer: SunCom Line of business: Wireless Services: Prepaid and postpaid; voice, data and content Subscribers: 1.1 Million Headquarters: Berwyn, Pennsylvania Website: www.suncom.com Employees: 1,900 Revenue: $852 million (2006) Challenges Bring cutting-edge content to market quickly Provide a highly personalized content experience to increase satisfaction Manage an entire digital commerce business with limited resources Achieve rapid time to market for new content Increase ARPU for data services Meet differing content demands for U.S. and Puerto Rico markets Provide billing and customer care integration Enhance promotions and content merchandising Make content easy and fun for customers Solution Amdocs Qpass Solution – mobile and PC storefronts are stocked with premium, targeted content; payment and billing services are supported Amdocs Qpass Content Services – a dedicated team manages all aspects of the content partner relationship, as well as the Suncom content storefront and promotions. Results Tripled data services revenue in two years Achieved a 10-percent monthly growth rate for premium services Provided customers with a vast array of premium content Improved customer satisfaction Streamlined operations with outsourced content services Enabled short time to market for new content Created an easy, personalized content experience for customers Access to hundreds of content partnerships managed by Amdocs Qpass

Says Lowry, “When SunCom was selecting the vendor for content management, Qpass was the clear winner. They had the international experience of working with multiple carriers across the globe. And they were able to provide a turn-key solution that interfaced with our current billing system, and bring it up and running very quickly.”

With the help of Amdocs, SunCom was able to quickly transition a simple WAP interface to a rich content solution that provides customers with easy access to leading content.

COMPLETE, END-TO-END SOLUTION
The Amdocs Qpass solution and content services provide a complete end-to-end infrastructure that benefits SunCom and its customers. Amdocs Qpass helps SunCom manage the entire digital commerce lifecycle, enabling SunCom subscribers to easily find, purchase and download a wide variety of continually updated content to their SunCom mobile phones.

Amdocs Qpass Solution
SunCom’s Amdocs Qpass Solution includes two products. The Service Management Platform helps SunCom manage partner relationships, product offer definitions and promotions, revenue sharing contracts, charges and settlement, customer care, and financial reporting. Amdocs Qpass Content Delivery Platform provides mobile and PC storefronts to SunCom and stocks them with the latest in content offerings targeted to SunCom customers.

Amdocs Qpass Content Services
For content selection, SunCom relies on Amdocs Qpass Content Services. This dedicated team of content experts enables SunCom and other wireless providers to outsource the management of their entire digital content stores.

Drawing from thousands of relationships with international content partners, music labels, and local, country-specific content partners, Amdocs Qpass Content Services sources premium content targeted for specific markets. The Content Services team negotiates with content providers directly on behalf of SunCom and manages the ongoing relationships. In addition, the team acquires the content and places it in the SunCom content storefront.

Amdocs Qpass manages day-to-day storefront activities, including content sourcing, selection, categorizing, publishing, as well as creating promotions and special bundles to promote subscriber growth..

INTENTIONAL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
SunCom strives for a customer experience that is simple and easy. Whether on the Web or handset, SunCom wants the purchase of data services to match the familiar experience its customers have of shopping at home on their PCs.

Amdocs Qpass helped SunCom organize choices in a way that creates a consistent customer experience and is easy for customers to understand. The content is updated regularly with the help of the content services team, ensuring that the newest, hottest content always appears at the top of the deck. SunCom customers can easily make their SunCom phones their own, with ringtones, graphics, games and other content that they select and download.

After SunCom and Amdocs Qpass launched enhanced content purchasing from both the handset and the Web, SunCom saw content sales grow. Says Lowry, “With Amdocs Qpass, we tripled revenues from our data services in just two years. It’s a wonderful experience when customers can find content, customize their phones and make their SunCom experience that much more personal.”

Partnering with Amdocs Qpass on an end-to-end solution has benefited SunCom and its customers. Access to leading content has allowed customers to personalize their equipment, and enabled SunCom to increase revenue.

EXTENSIVE EXPERTISE PROVIDES FLEXIBLE SOLUTION
As a regional wireless carrier, SunCom is a lean operating company that needs to maximize resources. By relying on Amdocs Qpass for a specialized area of expertise like content, SunCom is able to focus on their core business while still providing customers with the best content available.

“By partnering with Amdocs Qpass, we're able to have international expertise and research on upcoming content trends. Amdocs Qpass helps us look ahead at what content is going to be hot in the next six months to a year,” Lowry says. “It’s critical for us to have a partnership with a company like Amdocs Qpass in the content field.”

SunCom’s relationship with Amdocs Qpass ensures that SunCom customers have access to the top artists and brand name content they want. This calls for a high degree of flexibility and content expertise because the SunCom customer base is so diverse.

The SunCom customer base spans markets with very different content demands. In the United States, college basketball, NASCAR, country music, gospel, and hip-hop are very popular. In Puerto Rico, reggaeton and Latin music are currently more in demand. According to Lowry, “Amdocs Qpass is able to acquire the right content for each region, and present it on SunCom’s storefront in a manner that is easy for the customer to understand and easy for them to find.” Providing the right content is critical to customer satisfaction.

RAPID TIME TO MARKET
Time to market was a significant factor in choosing Amdocs Qpass. SunCom required a solution that could be deployed quickly, and one that could support new content as quickly as it became available.

“One of the major advantages of our partnership with Amdocs Qpass Content Services is the vast array of content that is available to our customers very quickly,” states Lowry.

Based on its partnerships with all of the major content providers in the world, Amdocs Qpass can tailor the SunCom content store very quickly to meet specific customer demands or SunCom promotional plans.

SUPPORTING PROMOTIONS AND CUSTOMER EDUCATION
Every wireless carrier faces the challenge of educating its customer base about the expanding array of handset capabilities in order to increase sales. Approximately 20 percent of the SunCom customer base regularly downloads content. So Amdocs Qpass helps SunCom design integrated, cross-promotions aimed at continually enhancing SunCom’s sales figures through customer education.

“We’ve had great success working with Amdocs Qpass on text messaging campaigns to our customers. The promotions help customers discover the content available to personalize their phones and also learn exactly what their wireless phones are capable of doing,” says Lowry.

Amdocs Qpass provides integration with SunCom’s SMS short code marketing campaigns. Customers can see a campaign and participate, and the result is a more unified, personal experience with their handset.

The extensive content expertise of the Amdocs Qpass team helps deliver a custom content to fit the SunCom marketplace. “Amdocs Qpass has helped make these campaigns really come alive to the customers. In the past, customers had to search by category for music or games or other content. Now their SunCom phone is more like a portal. We can promote hot content with a local focus like basketball games or a concert coming to town,” Lowry explains.

SUPERIOR PERSONAL SERVICE
Lowry highlights the personal relationship between the SunCom marketing team and the Amdocs Qpass account management team as one of the strong values of the partnership between the two companies.

“We immediately felt very comfortable with the Amdocs Qpass team, and we have one-on-one relationships with Amdocs Qpass account management. It’s literally just one phone call to reach the right people who can implement change and make decisions,” she explains.

Amdocs Qpass works closely with SunCom, discussing roadmap plans, content product performance and planning program design. “With help of Amdocs Qpass, SunCom is able to make decisions about content services we know our customers are going to want in coming months and years. We are able to stay ahead of the competition and plan for the services we think our customers are going to want,” says Lowry.

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