Three Pillars of Stellar Service Provider Customer Experience

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Would it be a surprise to learn that recent studies show 89% of companies today compete primarily on the basis of customer experience, more than doubling since 2010?

Digital service providers who meet subscribers’ needs for frictionless, personalized digital experiences perform 120% better in the market than those who do not, according to Watermark’s CX ROI Study. Those same leaders have also cut costs by up to 25% and have 14% higher revenue growth, per McKinsey research.

Why? Because customers who have better experiences are more likely to stay with their service provider and recommend them to others. Delivering a better customer experience translates directly into better business results. The proof is in the numbers — and some pretty bold numbers, at that.

So what exactly are the market leaders in customer experience doing differently?

Convergence, Analytics, and Personalization

Research suggests there are three common pillars of success for digital service providers leading the way on customer experience:

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First, they’re creating a convergence culture, where all systems and processes work together to create a great customer experience. By eliminating organizational and system silos, service providers gain a streamlined, holistic, real-time view of what’s happening with a customer that can help in determining the next best action to take. With the ability to connect domains and automate actions in the moments that matter, these service providers are able deliver the right service at the right time through the right channel.

Second, they’re adopting artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics. In customer care, AI can power chatbots or virtual assistants to address requests for support and enhance self-care activities. AI improves real-time analysis of customer data to instantaneously identify and predict satisfaction levels — critical to anticipating and reacting to customer needs. It can also be used to automate the resolution of network and service issues — and even prevent them from happening in the first place by continuously analyzing network health and triggering preventive actions, like recommending the use of an extender to improve a customer’s home Wi-Fi signal.

Third, customer experience leaders are building a single view of the customer journey. That means looking at the sum of all touchpoints, not just self-care or call center activity, and linking them through insights derived from business, network and device applications. This allows service providers to deliver meaningful, hyper-personalized messages and offers that improve overall satisfaction scores, reduce churn and generate new revenue opportunities.

Optimizing Business Results with Better Customer Experience

Following these three simple steps, service providers can begin optimizing their customer experience solutions in a way that drives business results.

There’s a myriad of ways a company can take action, including by simplifying and streamlining siloed customer care applications by adopting a common service platform. This allows a business to define one process for any device and any type of customer, greatly reducing training time and costs for call center agents and technicians.

Another way to change course might be to use AI and advanced analytics to deliver real-time, personalized offers aimed at activating “sleeping” subscribers in their pre-paid customer base — and increasing ARPU by significant amounts.

By gaining centralized visibility into customer interactions across customer care, marketing, operations and mobile payments, it could be possible to obtain satisfaction scores in real-time and determine root causes of service degradations faster than ever before, leading to a major reduction in complaints.

Clearly, there’s an opportunity for digital service providers to use customer experience to their considerable business advantage. In fact, many companies are already investing in the tools to bring their customer experience – and overall business – to the next level. It’s time to face the numbers and recognize the significant impact customer satisfaction has on your businesses bottom line.

About the author: Puneet Dhar has more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunication software industry. As the head of product management for Nokia’s Customer Care solutions, he helps CSPs deliver a more proactive and personalized omni-channel customer experience to their users. In various R&D and product leadership roles, Puneet has helped Nokia customers achieve operational excellence in the areas of network management, device management, analytics and AI.

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