Customer Experience Management – There is no one ‘right’ solution

Regional operators have discovered that traditional network key performance indicators (KPIs) do not always reflect what the customer is actually experiencing and thus his/her accurate satisfaction. In fact, an operator can boast the top KPIs in a given market and still lose market share to a competitor with a lower KPI score but a more compelling end-user experience. For operators in the Middle East, a strong Customer Experience Management (CEM) solution is clearly a mandatory direction, but what does that actually look like?

Xia Chaojie, VP Delivery & Service, Middle East, Huawei

Redefining CEM

Customer Experience Management was initially recognised as an industry concept in the early 2000s, though it took several more years for the TM Forum to officially embrace it, and even longer for operators to start catching on. In 2012, Huawei contracted Informa to initiate a research project that would illustrate the drivers for CEM and its importance from the operator’s perspective. It came as no surprise that retention & loyalty consistently ranked highest, but there was also surprising diversity in the answers, depending on the position and responsibilities within the operator’s organisation.

How do we get there?

To easily understand and accurately convey the barriers hindering the successful implementation of a CEM solution, Huawei has outlined three real-world scenarios:

Taken by surprise – It may sound basic, but many organisations simply don’t plan ahead. Many developed market operators have taken serious hits to their reputation as a result of network disruptions—triggered by their failure to foresee future requirements — which have proven a long-lasting capacity burden and hindrance to user experience.

Trying hard but not succeeding – Many operators have installed probes and routinely test for problems that impact service, which is all well & good, but they lack the detailed information necessary to demarcate a specific service, application or network component as the root cause.

It’s all about image – Operators have discovered that competitors with lower independent benchmarking ratings actually may have a higher end-user satisfaction index (CSI), such as their net promoter score (NPS). Since NPS and CSI scores have a strong correlation with future revenue, operators are increasingly embracing them as gauges of market performance and targets of CEM efforts.

Assuring success

Business success can only be assured with a holistic CEM approach. This means implementation with an understanding of the entire customer experience lifecycle; incorporating the voice of the customer so that a customised solution, tailored to the specific abilities of the operator, can be realised and implemented. In short, there is no one right answer here; each operator faces unique challenges and opportunities.

Regardless of the circumstances, the CEM transformation process must start with a thorough understanding of the customer. Proper business objectives, metrics, and a service/customer-centric orientation cannot be selected without it. A partner is often needed here; one with global experiences and local CEM insights. One who can help an operator achieve its goals within a reasonable amount of time and on any scale desired.

Customer Experience Index

Surveys are the most commonly accepted method for assessing customer loyalty or determining an NPS, but they tend to attract only the extreme answers. More is needed here, and Huawei revolutionises the customer assessment process with its customer experience index (CEI), a quality of experience (QoE) measurement that is purely objective. The main difference between CEI and NPS is that the latter incorporates emotional and psychological factors, such as branding or imaging, while CEI does not. It involves the tracking of user behaviour, and can be used to cross-check the truthfulness of individual survey results.

The path is clear

Although CEM was developed to address the shortcomings of a pure KPI approach, a successful customer-centric operation can only be assured if network performance is up to par. This makes network and service quality improvement the most critical phase of any successful CEM implementation. Once satisfactory network performance is achieved, service quality monitoring activities can begin.

With the Huawei SmartCare® CEM solution, for example, service quality improvement is based on an E2E per-service per-user (PSPU) KQI system that monitors service quality, demarcates problems, and accurately identifies root causes so that a KQI optimisation plan can be formulated.

This kind of operational consulting involves recommendations on how to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and achieve operational ‘best practices’ that focus on improved user-satisfaction. This is accomplished by addressing four key areas.

Huawei’s award-winning R&D capabilities have enabled us to develop our own state-of-the-art solution that includes the probes, software, and services necessary to address the very specific needs of any operator

The first is business process management as it dramatically impacts the performance of any company and differentiates any organisation from its competitors. The second is organisation and competence management, which evaluates staff competence and current organisational structure to ensure that they align with corporate goals. Operational benchmarking is the third and provides real-time performance analysis that allows telcos to compare their operations against competitors. Finally, change management facilitates the transition of individuals or teams within organisations from a current to a desired mode of operations.

As operations move to customer centricity, operators must also hire and retain talent with an entirely different skill set for the service operations centre. During this transition, the operator will require the guidance of a customer experience consulting team that supports them through the various challenges they will encounter. The first step in defining the customer experience is journey mapping, which is simply illustrating the steps a customer goes through when interacting with the operator. Next, an assessment maturity model is utilised to ensure consistent, predictable, efficient, and reliable assessment deployment.

Operators further need to address the importance of properly managing and providing experience assurance on the entire customer lifecycle. This is critical to retaining high-value subscribers. As mobile phone penetration increases, the acquisition of new subscribers becomes increasing challenging. It is imperative that operators adopt a CEM model to upsell services and increase loyalty, as this has the added benefit of preventing an organisation from wasting valuable time and money to acquire potentially less profitable subscribers.

A Vision for CEM

Huawei offers a holistic CEM service solution that is more than just a platform. With our deep understanding of the telecommunications industry, coupled with our strong strategic commitment to providing the ultimate CEM service solutions, the results are undeniable. Huawei’s award-winning R&D capabilities have enabled us to develop our own state-of-the-art solution that includes the probes, software, and services necessary to address the very specific needs of any operator. Our recognised team of global consultants can further guide operators through the challenges of customer centricity to achieve their business objectives.