Frontier continues to simplify inbound calling and increase up-selling opportunities

Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), a global supplier of application infrastructure software used to develop, deploy, integrate and manage business applications, announced today that Citizens Communications Company (NYSE: CZN), which operates as “Frontier Communications,” has implemented Progress® DataXtend® Semantic Integrator (SI) to reconcile data definitions between systems to enable data integration based on a common model.

Frontier chose DataXtend SI as a critical piece of a larger customer relationship management (CRM) project designed to minimize customer handoffs and increase up-selling opportunities. Frontier wanted to target opportunities more effectively using real-time knowledge of a customer’s existing services. The system, based on DataXtend SI, includes a third-party eBusiness product catalog, various legacy operational support and billing support systems, and an enterprise service bus (ESB) -- in this case the WebSphere Process Server -- as the integration backbone. DataXtend SI also reconciles the different data definitions of the product catalog and legacy systems, allowing them to communicate. Specifically, the third-party eBusiness system calls a web service endpoint on the ESB. The ESB then calls into DataXtend, which maps data from the incoming request to a common model based on the TM Forum's Shared Information Data (SID) model. The next step maps the resulting common model to the data model of the legacy system needed to fulfil the request.

DataXtend SI, with its standards-based, common-model approach to semantic integration, has enabled Frontier to meet its goals and critical timelines. The DataXtend SI implementation has helped Frontier minimize customer touch points by making integrated customer account information available to customer service representatives (CSRs) during calls. Previously, Frontier CSRs had to access multiple systems to obtain customer or product specific information. Now they can seamlessly access information across a subscriber’s entire account, greatly improving their ability to meet customer needs and maximize up-selling opportunities.

In addition to increased efficiency in handling incoming orders, CSRs can now better gauge the appropriateness of various marketing offers for individual customers without transferring the calls to other departments.