The Beacon
August 2020
Looking for more content? Check out the Revenue EDGE Beacon here.
How do we get through times of great change and uncertainty? How can we keep our teams motivated and stay focused on our shared goal of connecting everyone and everything with the best, most sophisticated broadband and subscriber services on the market?
We look for the bright spots.
My summer didn’t look the way it has in years past, and I’m guessing yours didn’t, either. Personally, I’ve gotten a lift from focusing on all the incredible work the Calix team is doing to deliver the best platforms, solutions, and services so you can stay competitive in your market. In this issue of The Beacon, you can catch up on all the 20.3 updates we released that will help you in a variety of ways:
During uncertain times, it’s also important to take every opportunity to celebrate success. We’ll do that at an amazingly dynamic and immersive virtual ConneXions in October. For the first time, we’ll be featuring stories from your subscribers at the event. (And we’ll reveal speakers and more information very soon.) For now, here’s what you need to know:
I hope you enjoy reading this issue of the Beacon. We welcome your feedback, stories, and ideas.
Innovations in Revenue EDGE
Are you a data-driven marketer? Are you using Calix Marketing Cloud to uncover new and creative ways to reach subscribers with the Revenue EDGE? We want to hear your story. Record a brief video (fewer than three minutes) and submit it by October 1 via WeTransfer (enter the email address award.submissions@calix.com to send). Your video should outline three elements:
The winning video will be showcased during ConneXions, and the team will receive a complimentary marketing workshop with Decision Counsel (the producers of “The Millers” and “InyComm” videos). Good luck! If you have questions, please email Lisa.Gschwandtner@Calix.com.
Innovations in Intelligent Access EDGE
Are you actively innovating and optimizing your network operations? Are you embracing software-defined architecture with the Intelligent Access EDGE and AXOS? We want to hear your story. Record a brief video (fewer than three minutes) and submit it by October 1 via WeTransfer (enter the email address award.submissions@calix.com to send). Your video should outline three elements:
The winning video will be showcased during ConneXions, and up to five members of the winning team will be awarded new Apple iPads. Good luck! If you have questions, please email Lisa.Gschwandtner@Calix.com.
As the telecom industry transitions from 4G to 5G networks, the evolution of technology will enable communications service providers (CSPs) to support a host of new services with extremely varying characteristics of low latency, high bandwidth, and multiple endpoints.
However, all this innovation will make networks and associated operations more complex.
Why you need automation.
Amid these changes, one thing will be key to maintain visibility and control of your network operations: automation.
The benefits of network automation extend to three specific areas—each is vital to the success of a network operations team:
Network automation decreases operational costs over time—despite a rise in customer expectations for fast, reliable service and increased complexification of operations.
Everything starts with the subscriber.
With automation, successful CSPs will be prepared to seamlessly provision, activate, and deploy new services on the fly. You can dramatically improve your subscribers’ experience by creating a flexible operational environment. You can automate service introductions, create services rapidly, and more easily scale your operations. With that in mind, we focused our efforts within 20.3 on simplifying everything that relates to provisioning services and delivering a high-quality subscriber experience.
Automated, dynamic, and simple.
The 20.3 update to the Intelligent Access EDGE Solution introduces Automated Network Service Provisioning, a dynamic feature delivered by SMx that delivers massive improvements in network operations efficiency. This new feature enables you to automatically pre-provision subscriber services without the OLT, thereby simplifying your ONT activation process and dramatically reducing the time required to install and turn up new services. It also allows you to improve your service consistency and reliability by reducing error rates and integrating related tasks into repeatable processes.
The AXOS SMx solution results in a decreased time to market for new services, a dramatic reduction in service delivery intervals, and a better subscriber experience.
Your Recommended Action Plan
With everything your teams need to do to deliver the ultimate subscriber experience, wouldn’t it be nice to have a trusted partner helping you every step of the way? Wouldn’t it be extra nice if that expert support led to more upsell opportunities for you?
For example, how would you like to work with a dedicated team that can offer you:
With Revenue EDGE Customer Success Services, a new premier service offering, Revenue EDGE customers can get all of that.
SCTelcom is already working with its Revenue EDGE Customer Success Services manager to gain more traction with Revenue EDGE. Carla Shearer, general manager for SCTelcom, said, “Revenue EDGE Customer Success Services are critical for our organization, and it meant everything to me in my role. The data-driven approach takes all the subjectivity out of the execution.”
Persona-based training for your team gets results.
When Wendy Crenner, marketing manager for SCTelcom, collaborated with the Customer Success team, she appreciated the persona-based approach to training. “The training was a big benefit to the organization,” she said. “The customer service representative had one learning path designed for them, versus the field and network operations technicians, who had a different curriculum that fit the technical depth they needed.”
Revenue EDGE Customer Success Services benefits your marketing, customer support, and field installation teams. It’s exclusively offered (at no additional charge) to Revenue EDGE ramp customers that have currently invested in both premier level Marketing Cloud and Support Cloud Customer Success Services.
Your Recommended Action Plan
Supporting the Needs of Marketing and Business Leaders
The Revenue EDGE Beacon dives deeper into best practices and reveal insights from our customers who are effectively engaging their communities and understanding the data to build great experiences that can retain, grow, and attract new subscribers.
Subscribe today!
Our recent Revenue EDGE 20.3 release is packed with new features and capabilities that will help you deliver world-class subscriber experiences, ensure you keep subscribers secure, and reduce your support operations costs. Here’s a summary.
Dashboards make new EDGE Insights actionable for your support team.
The interactive reports with advanced data visualization and dynamic filtering now available on Calix Support Cloud (CSC) are designed to provide visibility into macro trends regarding troubles, resolutions, systems performance, operations, and more (across the entire subscriber base). Additionally, the ability to drill into relevant details for deeper analysis allows customer care leaders to easily uncover problem areas and opportunities to improve subscriber experience and support operations.
EDGE Systems automatically improves subscriber experience.
Built-in features like Dynamic channel selection (DCS) and Dynamic frequency selection (DFS) continuously monitor and automatically fix common issues such as interference and channel congestion before they degrade Wi-Fi performance and impact subscriber experience. As a result, they not only reduce inbound trouble calls, but also allow customer care reps to run SmartChecks in seconds by eliminating the need for site scans to gauge Wi-Fi health.
Secure onboarding for GigaSpire BLAST systems.
When you enable the optional secondary validation using CSC, systems onboarded via CommandIQ™ will require additional authentication. This feature helps you implement security best practices and ensure BLAST systems are assigned to the correct subscribers.
Simplified troubleshooting and day-to-day operations.
New APIs add up to making daily network support and operations easier—they include improvements for managing EDGE Suites subscriptions, providing additional visibility for Wi-Fi and client troubleshooting, making admin enhancements, and updating broadband performance testing that will help you stay compliant with FCC regulations for CAF-related tests.
Your Recommended Action Plan
More and more service providers are recognizing the value of deploying the full end-to-end Revenue EDGE solution—and ramping up fast to maximize ROI.
Calix customers are reporting a variety of benefits after adopting Revenue EDGE, including improved operational efficiency, new revenue growth, and greater subscriber satisfaction. Here are two great examples.
By leveraging the full power of the Revenue EDGE solution, service providers can reinforce their brand and transition away from “speeds and feeds” to deliver peace of mind, convenience, entertainment, and experiences that adapt to meet individual subscriber’s changing needs.
The results speak for themselves.
Your Recommended Action Plan
Acquiring subscribers is one thing. Keeping them is another.
GVTC Communications (GVTC) has cracked the code on both, delivering the top-tier wire speeds (the kind necessary for the most advanced applications) and increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction by 25 and 18 percent, respectively.
Netflix and no chill.
GVTC was not satisfied with being listed among the top communications service providers for streamers, so it raised the stakes, delivering the flashy wire speeds that Netflix named the fastest in the country. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, broadband subscribers are working, learning, and staying entertained at home more than ever before. GVTC has ensured they remain unimpeded by delivering services across industry-best Wi-Fi 6 connectivity with the GigaSpire BLAST.
A next-level experience.
The regional communications cooperative has not stopped at blistering speeds, though. Retaining and delighting subscribers requires continued investment in the in-home experience, so GVTC is continually adding customization to its premium managed Wi-Fi offering. By delivering the best network security and parental controls, GVTC ensures that its subscribers—of all ages—remain safe, and it can interact with them instantly through its own mobile application.
Thanks to GVTC, the communities in Texas Hill Country are also among the best-connected.
Your Recommended Action Plan
Ensure your technicians have the skills to be successful out in the field. Calix Academy continues to offer courses from installation to provisioning to troubleshooting. This quarter we expanded our learning paths to include installation courses for AXOS and network troubleshooting. Our new courses include the following.
Updated Courses for 20.3
Your Recommended Action Plan
Ten weeks ago, Calix welcomed 17 college interns to virtually join our teams across our marketing, customer support, operations, and analytics teams. Our foremost consideration was helping them stay connected with Calix employees so they’d have the best opportunities possible to learn and grow.
As it turned out, many of our interns didn’t have previous corporate experience—or experience working from a home office. Luckily, we relied on our strong work-from-anywhere (WFA) culture to deploy the right tools, processes, and communications from management to ensure our interns were able to build great working relationships in a virtual work environment. To do so, we enabled interns with the following:
Over the course of the summer, the interns worked on critical assignments that helped them build valuable experience and contribute to company goals. Here are some of their thoughts and impressions.
“Our team analyzed over 2,000 Salesforce records to determine which is data was most useful. We enriched that data and used it to discover insights that could help drive decision-making.”—Alex Chung
“I am so honored to have been a part of such an amazing company this summer. Interning at Calix made me realize I have a real interest in technology.” —Devon Vali
“This summer I learned to effectively collaborate and work in a virtual corporate environment.” —Zev Shapero
At the end of the summer our interns delivered a presentation to the Calix management and executive teams outlining how their work impacted the business and the knowledge they gained. As the leader of the intern program, I’m tremendously proud of the interns and how they demonstrated that our extended virtual intern program was viable and valuable to Calix. I can’t wait for 2021!
Want to create your own internship program? I’d also be happy to discuss specifics with you; email me at Cheryl.Rodness@calix.com to set up a call.
Your Recommended Action Plan
Role: Demand and Supply Analytics Intern
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
School: Santa Clara University
Educational Focus: Masters in Business Analytics
Favorite Movie: "La La Land"
Favorite Vacation Spot: Miami
Fun Fact : My birthday falls on the same day as my sibling but she is not a twin—she's four years older.
Role: Supply Chain Management intern
Location: Santa Clara, CA
School: Santa Clara University
Educational Focus: Business Analytics
Favorite Movie: The Harry Potter series
Favorite Vacation Spot: Yellowstone National Park
Fun Fact: I am a ceramics and music enthusiast.
Role: Analytics Intern
Location: New York, NY
School: Columbia University
Educational Focus: Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
Favorite Movie: "Edge of Tomorrow"
Favorite Vacation Spot: Hong Kong
Fun Fact: I once walked from upper Manhattan to Brooklyn (it took around 5 hours).
Role: Data Science Intern
Location: Corte Madera, CA
School: Washington University in St Louis
Educational Focus: BS in Computer Science and BA in Computational Biology
Favorite Movie: "The Proposal"
Favorite Vacation Spot: Shady Cove, OR
Fun Fact: I love to scuba dive! So far, I have gone diving in Mexico, Hawaii, and Thailand!
Role: Customer Success Specialist
Location: Santa Cruz, CA/Bay Area
School: Georgetown University ‘20
Educational Focus: I have completed BSBA, majoring in Marketing and Operations/Information Management
Favorite Movie: "John Wick" or "The Gentlemen"
Favorite Vacation Spot: High Sierra/ Yosemite
Fun Fact: I can quote 95 percent of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"
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