Technical support and field dispatch reduction for a Colombian telecommunications operator

The client is a Colombian telecommunications operator with approximately 3.1 million mobile and fixed-line subscribers, offering mobile, fixed broadband, IPTV and small-business connectivity. Field operations are the operator's largest controllable cost line after network capital expenditure.

The operator was dispatching field technicians for problems that did not require them. Analysis of completed work orders found that roughly 45% of residential broadband dispatches closed with no fault found, meaning the issue was resolvable remotely and the truck roll avoidable. At the operator's dispatch cost, this was a substantial and recoverable annual loss. The root cause was diagnostic capability in the contact centre. Tier 1 agents followed a restart-and-reconnect script and escalated everything else, and escalation in practice meant dispatch because there was no real tier 2. Agents had no access to line diagnostics and could not distinguish a customer-side problem from a network fault. The consequence for customers was worse than the cost. A dispatch meant an appointment window, often days out, during which service stayed degraded. The operator's churn analysis showed dispatch-affected subscribers churning at roughly twice the base rate.

The operator had tried to build tier 2 internally and failed on recruitment, because the technical profile competed directly with its own network engineering hiring.

Corpshore Colombia proposed Medellín, whose strong technical and engineering labour market supplies a troubleshooting-capable profile that does not compete head-on with the operator's own network recruitment. The operator had not considered a delivery model built around Medellín's technical depth. Corpshore also proposed to contract against dispatch avoidance rather than handle time, aligning the commercial structure to the outcome the operator needed. Competing bids proposed AHT-based pricing, which the operator's own analysis showed would incentivise faster escalation to dispatch.

Ninety-two agents in Medellín across two tiers: 60 in tier 1 and 32 in a newly created tier 2 diagnostic function, with eight team leaders and three QA analysts. Tier 2 agents complete a six-week technical onboarding on the operator's access network, CPE estate, provisioning systems and line diagnostics before taking live contacts. Coverage is 24 hours, aligned to the operator's network operations centre shifts, with read access to line diagnostics and provisioning.

Build the missing tier. The core intervention was a genuine tier 2 diagnostic layer between tier 1 and dispatch. Roughly a quarter of contacts that would previously have gone to dispatch now resolve at tier 2. Diagnostics access as a precondition. Read access to line diagnostics and provisioning was made a contractual precondition, without which tier 2 would have been a second script. The operator's prior internal attempt had failed partly for this reason.

Dispatch as a decision, not a default. Every dispatch now requires a documented diagnostic conclusion, coded and reviewed weekly against work-order closure data.

Feedback into training. No-fault-found dispatches are reviewed and, where a pattern emerges, the diagnostic path is added to tier 2 training, which is what moved avoidance from an initial 380 per month to a sustained level above 2,500.

Field dispatch avoided through remote resolution

Field dispatches avoided reached approximately 2,560 per month by month eight and sustained there. The share of technical contacts resolved without dispatch rose from 73% to 91%. Churn among subscribers with a technical contact fell materially, with resolved-on-call subscribers churning near the base rate against roughly double at baseline.

The operator redirected released field capacity to installation and upgrade work that had been backlogged rather than reducing field headcount.

The diagnostic paths, dispatch reason codes and closure-data feedback loop are operator-owned process assets. The Medellín technical model has been extended to two further support functions. Corpshore Colombia has applied the dispatch-avoidance contracting structure to subsequent utilities and telecommunications proposals.