CEM: There’s no one “right” solution
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By Trevor Cheung, Marketing Director of HUAWEI SmartCare CEM Solution
Operators have discovered that traditional network key performance indicators (KPIs)
do not always reflect customer satisfaction accurately. In fact, an operator can boast
the top KPIs in a given market and still lose market share to a competitor with a lesser
score but a more compelling experience (or price point). MVNOs have even been
known to deliver a much higher level of satisfaction than the host carrier. If you
happen to be that host carrier, a CEM solution is clearly in order.
What is CEM?
Customer experience management (CEM) was initially recognized as an industry
concept in 2001, though it would take another three 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/churn consistently ranked highest, but there was also
a surprising amount of diversity in the answers, depending on the position and
responsibilities within the operator’s organization.
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 organizations simply don’t plan
ahead. Many developed market operators have taken serious hits to their reputation by
the network disruptions triggered by their failure to foresee the effects of smartphones,
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 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 user satisfaction index,
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
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 customized solution tailored to the
specific needs of the operator comes into being. In short, there is no one right answer
here; each operator faces unique challenges.
However, regardless of circumstance, the CEM transformation process must start with
a thorough understanding of the customer, as proper business objectives, metrics, and
a service/customer-centric orientation cannot be selected without it. A partner is
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, on any scale desired.
Huawei CEI
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 revolutionizes 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, as it involves the tracking of user behavior, 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 initial and 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, service quality improvement is based on an E2E
per-service per-user (PSPU) KQI system that monitors service quality, demarcates
problems, and accurately determines root causes, so that a KQI optimization plan can
be formulated.
Operational consulting involves advice 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.
The first is business process management, as it dramatically impacts the performance
of any company and differentiates any organization from its competitors, while the
second is organization and competence management, which evaluates staff
competence and current organizational 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. And finally, change management facilitates the transition of individuals
or teams within organizations from a current to a desired mode of operations.
As operations move to customer centricity, carriers must hire and retain talent with an
entirely different skill set for the service operations center. During this transition, the
operator will require the guidance of a CE 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
utilized to ensure consistent, predictable, efficient, and reliable assessment
deployment.
Operators need to address the importance of properly managing and providing
experience assurance in terms of the entire customer lifecycle, as 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 organization from wasting valuable time and money
constantly acquiring potentially less-profitable subscribers.
Huawei offers a holistic CEM solution that is more than just a product or platform.
With our deep understanding of the telecommunications industry, coupled with our
strong strategic commitment to providing the ultimate in CEM 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 individual needs of any operator. Our
internationally-recognized team of global consultants can guide operators through the
challenges of customer centricity, putting us in a unique position, as no other vendor
can make that claim.
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