Customer Relationship Management
Azotel’s SIMPLer platform manages all of the data for a customer, or potential customer, from start to finish. This is presented in a user friendly, easy to navigate interface, which means that the required information is always quickly and easily accessible. The platform also provides integrated trouble ticketing and sales tracking systems. Operators can also add their own custom fields to the customer record, and attachments files of any type.
Billing and Payment Processing
Multiple payment methods are supported, including automatic payments via direct debit, e-checks and credit cards. Interfaces to the most common payment gateways are available, including Authorize.Net, IP Pay, Moneris, Realex, PayPal and Payment Express. Usage-based billing is supported, which allows subscribers to be charged based on the amount of data that they use. An integrated debtors ledger and numerous financial reports are also available.
Auto Notification, Throttling and Disconnect
SIMPLer can monitor subscribers who have invoices which are overdue, and/or subscribers who have exceeded their weekly or monthly data cap. When pre-defined thresholds are exceeded, the affected subscribers can be automatically notified, throttled (so that they remain online, but the speed of their connection is reduced) or disconnected.
Bandwidth Management
The optional WISP-In-a-Box (WIB) provides bandwidth management and traffic shaping capabilities. Customers can be grouped into buckets with pre-defined uplink and downlink speeds and contention ratios, with the WIB managing traffic to ensure that customers remain within their allocation. Peer-to-Peer traffic can also be restricted.
End-User Portal
The End-User Portal provides end customers with online access to important information about their account. Customers can view and edit their account details, payment method and equipment details, can see their current balance and previous invoices, make electronic payments, purchase hotspot tokens, view their data usage, run a speed test, and more.
Helpdesk Service
An outsourced helpdesk service is available to deal with support issues from end customers. The helpdesk staff are experienced in using the SIMPLer platform, and in dealing with typical customer issues in a wireless broadband network. This allows operators to avoid having to hire and manage additional staff to provide 24-7 support themselves.
Hotspot System
Hotspot services can be provided using Azotel’s optional Hotspot-In-a-Box (HIB), or a MikroTik hotspot controller. Both free and paid services can be provided, with purchased tokens being limited by time and/or data. The portal pages used during the sign-up process can be easily customized with an operator’s own images and branding.
Inventory Management
Details of equipment that is in use and in stock can be managed within SIMPLer. This allows an operator to manage not just the equipment that is assigned to each customer, but equipment that is available for use for new installs across multiple warehouse locations. Parent-child relationships can be created and maintained automatically, so that the entire equipment hierarchy is known.
Network Monitoring
SIMPLer monitors the health of the network, and identifies any equipment that is unreachable. When this happens, alerts can be sent via email and/or SMS, so that you’re notified of potential problems immediately. SIMPLer also provides usage graphs for individual customers and equipment, and many other diagnostic tools and statistics.
Dispatch, Installation and Provisioning
SIMPLer automates as many of the steps required to provision a new customer as possible, thereby eliminating possible causes of error. It also provides a graphical scheduling facility based on Google calendars for installs and repairs, which includes the ability to send daily email notifications to each installer outlining their tasks for the following day.
Flexible Reporting
Operators can securely connect to the SIMPLer database using an external reporting package such as Crystal Reports or Jasper Reports. This allows operators to create and run their own complex queries whenever they want.
Mapping and Coverage Checking
The positions of all of your customers can be overlaid on both Google Maps and Google Earth, so you can see their locations graphically. This allows operators to identify clusters of potential customers in areas where they do not currently provide coverage. An integrated coverage checker is also available, which determines whether line-of-sight is available from an access point to a potential customer.
