At a recent customer services workshop, Analysys Mason had the opportunity to speak to several communications service provider (CSP) participants about their real-world concerns around customer experience management (CEM). The group consisted of representatives from a diverse selection of CSPs, varying in size, geographical location and operations sophistication. This article discusses the CEM-related issues that CSPs have, ranks these issues according to complexity and outlines the implications for CSPs and vendors of CEM solutions.
CSPs continue to be concerned about CEM
CEM is the ability to measure and develop the customer experience. In the telecoms market, the focus is on the delivery, support and billing of voice, video and application data.
CSPs report that many of the required actions to improve CEM are rather basic – such as rationalising the separate procedures for measuring customer satisfaction that multiple operational units within a CSP may have implemented, and reducing the mean time to repair – while others are more complex such as the need to have a uniform way of measuring the Net Promoter Score (NPS).
We have ranked the CEM-related issues that CSPs would like to change by level of complexity (with 10 being the most complex) (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: CEM-related issues for CSPs, in order of complexity Source
Level of complexity | Issue |
1 | Multiple operational units with separate procedures and methods of defining customer satisfaction |
2 | Need to reduce mean time to repair |
3 | Need to quantify benefits other than customer satisfaction to get funds for customer satisfaction projects |
4 | Tension between mass operations for consistency and low expense, and the desire for differential service levels for business and high-value customers |
5 | Lack of personalised data on customers |
6 | Lack of alignment of marketing and operational metrics |
7 | Need for consistency of offers, prices and presentation across multiple channels – customer service representatives (CSRs), apps, websites and stores |
8 | Need to get real-time data on services to CSRs to reduce escalations |
9 | Need to correlate social media data with customer data they already have – particularly to reduce churn |
10 | Need to implement a uniform programme of measuring NPS |
CSPs have significant scope for improving customer satisfaction by implementing new technology and quantifying expected benefits.
Implications for CSPs
- Need for change. New technologies introduced into CSPs’ operations have been increasing customer satisfaction scores, but many of the needed actions involve basic organisational and business issues that must be addressed by management. Change management programmes are challenging and often fail because of problems such as lack of senior management buy-in, a non-existent shared view, unenthusiastic efforts, lack of clear accountability and poor measurement systems. It is essential that change programmes are implemented throughout the organisation.
- Linking CEM programmes to business benefits. CEM programmes need to tie the results of customer satisfaction programmes to business benefits, and thus make CEM more than a corporate buzzword and a funding pool. Two-thirds of the CSP participants at the recent customer services workshop that we attended had their bonuses tied to customer satisfaction measurements, but most felt that their companies had little insight into how to increase the customer satisfaction scores. Around one-fifth of the companies used NPS, but most felt that it is even more distant than the usual KPIs because they were unable to show how a change in NPS would affect business success.
- Measure CEM at all phases of customer lifecycle. Customer experience metrics must measure and report on three phases of the customer lifecycle – joining, on-boarding and support.
Implications for vendors
- Vendors with CEM-focused products should consider offering them in consultative packages because organisations may need to address basic issues before their technology can be used to its full potential.
- Vendors should help their CSP clients quantify the benefits of increasing customer satisfaction, including NPS, by building case studies and framework business cases for CEM solutions.
For more information on the CEM framework, please refer to Analysys Mason's Customer experience management framework: how to retain subscribers and improve customer loyalty.