We see 2015 as being the year when CEM (Customer Experience Management) becomes a top priority for operators in developing markets, as they continue their quest for the retention of customers and improvements in ARPU.
Widening choice and increasing competition means that operators need innovative solutions to keep their customers happy.
Following trends elsewhere, the market for mobile phones is becoming increasingly commoditised, and operators need to find a way to differentiate themselves in order to secure loyalty. One way to achieve this is by offering exemplary customer service. CEM is evolving from a reactive product that responds to customer problems to a proactive resource that is able to anticipate problems and to respond to them as they begin to develop. Mobile network operators increasingly face the challenge of improving their customer service without driving up OPEX.Crowd-sourced data is a growing theme, and SpatialBuzz has pioneered this as a means of providing operators with the most comprehensive real-time picture available of how the network is performing, and what issues might be arising or about to become critical.
Customers in developing markets are keen to access higher data rates to support their growing adoption of smartphones. This means continuous upgrades to network infrastructure that cause disruption to the mobile service, and if this happens to coincide with regular maintenance nearby, then the combined effect can be disastrous for customer satisfaction. Pro-actively communicating with customers to let them know of possible service disruption and monitoring the experience of customers in real time can help greatly to avoid user frustration, and can assist the operator in planning the works in the least invasive manner.
Operators must adopt the latest CEM techniques in order to keep their customers informed and engaged about how the network is performing. By involving the customer, they not only provide a more satisfactory experience but the customers provide valuable data and effectively become part of the network management system.
Andrew Blake is the CTO of SpatialBuzz.
