On-Demand CRM for Telecom Agents Debuts

Tired of spreadsheets for managing prospects and customers? Sick of shoehorning your customer data into generic software? Frustrated by the high cost of custom applications? If so, you are not alone.

Telecom agents have the unique problem of having a highly diversified supplier base and a highly specific product set that requires highly customized customer relationship management and partner relationship management solutions but little, if any, wherewithal to buy or create them. The industry-specific solutions are targeted to carriers and master agents with price tags commensurate with their size. And subscription-based hosted services, aka Salesforce.com, while affordable lack the telecom-specific functions.

A startup company, Qudex.com, is working to change all that. After a year in beta testing, the company announced in fall 2009 a new on-demand CRM package just for telecom. The software as a service application was designed for customers, carriers and agents to manage telecom assets.

The software is advertised as being able to assist decisions relating to inventory management, call accounting, audit management, reverse auction, RFP process management, infrastructure management, wireless management, network security, business process optimization, trouble-shooting and support. However, it also includes features just for agents, such as CRM, subagent and commission management.

The commission module, for example, enables agents to manage all commission structures within their organization and with third parties. It enables comparison of incoming payments against net or gross monthly billed revenues. And, it allows agents to manage the entire process according to their own audit rules.

Qudex also allows agents to offer customers and subagents a platform for day-to-day support, including real-time trouble-ticket management, credit process reconciliation updates, outage notifications and provisioning management.