By Susan McNeice, VP of Research, and Sheryl Kingstone, Research Director, Yankee Group
Every customer has an experience with a communications service provider (CSP), device maker, software application developer or some other member of the industry ecosystem. The question is: Is it the experience they want? Is it what is intended?
The communications industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation due to the hyper-convergence of Internet, mobility and new media and devices. The ability of CSPs and their ecosystem partners to drive customer loyalty and capitalize on new revenue opportunities beyond their traditional markets will help provide new revenue for growth in mature markets and new opportunities in emerging markets.
However, a critical reality check for service providers is to transform their strategies around their customers. There is a lot at stake: If service providers get it wrong, they will continue to lose mind share, customer loyalty and revenue to competitors.
Customer experience—or “connected experience,” as Yankee Group calls it—occurs across four dimensions representing broad categories of customer interactions:
• Company and brand: This includes service provider public reputation, as well as individual brand values and attributes.
• Products and services: These are market-facing offers representing combinations of services, features, equipment and third-party deliverables. They are surrounded by business rules for eligibility, pricing, discounting and duration.
• Channel: This is the means by which service providers interact with their customers before, during and after the sale, including direct sales teams, dealer networks, Web portals, social networking sites and contact centers.
• Delivery and operations: This includes the manufacture, assembly, delivery, maintenance and repair of the actual products and services. It is the “how” of the service providers’ world.
In each of these dimensions, service providers make decisions and subsequent investments to establish and maintain the experience infrastructure. Likewise, connected users have points of view that inform and govern their buying decisions. In an ideal setting, these opinion sets match. Where they don’t, there is an opportunity to change the experience.
Ongoing customer churn, angry Facebook posts and annual survey results are all proof of the need for the communications industry to transform and stop generating its current bottom-of-the-barrel statistics compared to other industries. In fact, given the near ubiquity of basic transport services and me-too nature of the telecom market, Yankee Group believes the connected experience is one of the last remaining opportunities for competitive differentiation.
What Is the Ideal Experience?
It would be easy enough to dismiss the ideal experience as “whatever the customer wants” or as something that cannot be defined, let alone managed or transformed. But Yankee Group believes connected users expect their relationship with service providers to be:
• Transparent. It should be evident and in plain sight at all times—in other words, no “fine print” restrictions or caveats. Changes to accounts need to be presented in an easily digestible manner that is both professional and respectful of the customer. Service providers must be forthright about the boundaries of the relationship.
• Consistent. When service providers promise customers certain coverage, quality, pricing or availability, customers expect consistent behavior from the network, customer care, billing, provisioning and all other touch points. While difficult to ensure technically, that is service providers’ mandate.
• Dynamic. Service provider actions that affect the connected experience must be rapid, personalized, immersive and competitive. Users of all services look for real-time or at least near-real-time delivery, and they expect competitive prices and services tailored to their interests.
The endgame for service providers, of course, is a differentiated experience that results in improved revenue and customer loyalty. This is no small matter, and the investment will not likely pay off in a time window short enough to please Wall Street. But now is the time to act: Begin the transformation process or watch your market share and margins continue to thin.
Yankee Group defines customer experience transformation (CET) as a commitment to customer interactions that are consistent, dynamic and transparent across all four dimensions of brand, products and services, channel, and delivery and operations. The goal is to achieve competitive differentiation by viewing the world through the eyes of one’s customers and modifying interactions of the experience accordingly.
The following are fundamental requirements for CET initiatives:
• Offer rationalization and clarification
• Cross-channel optimization
• Embedded, real-time, cross-functional intelligence infrastructure
• Strategic, predictive intelligence
• Consistent service quality
• Social media integration
• Network- and customer-focused policy
• Customer-centric performance measures
The goal is to improve operations, lower costs, conquer new markets and generate new revenue streams, all while delivering the right connected experience that keeps customers happy and the business profitable. To do this, CSPs must focus on customer needs, sell on value and proactively provide care. The reality is an increasingly sophisticated world, with sophisticated expectations. Service providers must make CET their reality.
To learn more:
• Attend the upcoming free webinar, “Driving Better Customer Experience,” on 2 June at 11:00 a.m. EDT (15:00 GMT)
• Attend the upcoming free seminar, “Delivering a World-Class Customer Experience,” on 7 June at 9:00 a.m. GMT in London or 9 June at 9:00 a.m. CEST in Paris. |