Software AG > Case Studies > Orange Makes It Easier For Pay-As-You-Go Customers To “Top Up”

Orange Makes It Easier For Pay-As-You-Go Customers To “Top Up”

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

Europe

Country

United Kingdom

Product

webMethods Business Process Management Suite (BPMS)
webMethods Integration Server
webMethods Broker
CentraSite

Tech Stack

webMethods
SAP

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Customer Satisfaction
Revenue Growth

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - API Integration & Management
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Applicable Industries

Telecommunications

Applicable Functions

Sales & Marketing
Business Operation

Use Cases

Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
Process Control & Optimization

Services

System Integration
Software Design & Engineering Services

About The Customer

Orange is the key brand of the France Telecom Group, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators. With 123 million customers, the Orange brand covers Internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the group operates. In the U.K., Orange provides high-quality GSM coverage to 99 percent of the population and has more than 17 million customers, 16.11 million active mobile customers and approximately 900,000 fixed broadband customers (end of September 2009).

The Challenge

Attracting and keeping mobile phone customers requires continuous innovation. Orange UK excels at this. To meet customer expectations, Orange strives to provide products and services that are simple and user-friendly. That is why the company set out to make pay-as-you-go mobile service as convenient and easy as possible. The challenge was to create a system that allows customers to top up their accounts from anywhere while on the go. The process needed to be fast and seamless, interacting with up to 10 systems and sending the customers their top-up approval in seconds.

The Solution

Orange automated pre-payments using the webMethods Business Process Management Suite (BPMS). Customers get a text message when their balance runs low. They can text back to buy more minutes using a credit card. In seconds, the process interacts with up to 10 systems and sends the customers their top-up approval. The process took about four months to get to the pilot stage. Since then, it has taken off across the U.K. Using the process modeler of webMethods BPMS, Orange was able to assure the top-up process designed would work reliably. Designers could visualize all the steps and identify issues easily in testing. This helped Orange get the process right, the first time, quickly, in a market where speed means everything and customers are quick to change providers.

Operational Impact

Increased customer convenience, helping to reduce customer churn
No disruption in service or revenue stream—customers are alerted instantly when they need to buy minutes and can purchase them on the spot
Great customer uptake—thousands of customers “top up” daily
New process, delivered in four months, builds on existing investment in webMethods technology by Orange

Quantitative Benefit