Unquestionably, users are the unstoppable force driving seismic shifts in the industry. With over 1,300 pre-registrants to kick-off CTIA 2011, Yankee Group brought together industry veterans that live, sleep and prioritize improving the end-to-end customer experience. The customer experience is the last remaining opportunity for competitive differentiation for communications service providers (CSPs).
We kicked off the day by unveiling Yankee Group’s viewpoints on how the last differentiating opportunity is delivering a consistent, transparent and dynamic customer experience. We presented groundbreaking research on users’ rankings of the most important ingredients of a customer experience with their CSP. While the top ingredient is a competitive price, it does not mean the lowest price. Contrary to common perception, customers will not go almost anywhere just to save a buck. They are willing to pay 10% more for a consistent, transparent and dynamic experience.
Sprint delivered a keynote highlighting how they deliver a consistent, transparent and dynamic experience. Sprint understands that the customer experience can make or break their success. Sprint is a remarkable turnaround story. Traditionally known for the lowest satisfaction scores in the industry, Sprint has now seen two years worth of significantly improved scores.
Alltel articulated what they have done to improve the customer experience by monitoring the network with Arantech to improve the quality of the experience for users. Users tell us that consistent service from the network is essential. With 53% of users ranked Network Service Quality as one of the top three ingredients of the customer experience.
Amdocs gave customer examples of how to provide a dynamic and responsive experience by providing an improved cross channel experience. These channels–while still dominated by home telephone for customer service and support–also include SMS, e-mail, online chat, Web self-service, voice self-service and social media channels. The reality is the customer experience is still very fragmented.
We closed the day with two lively discussions on the customer experience from our sponsors: Amdocs, Arantech, Sybase, Globys, Sterling Commerce, Connectiva and MDS. There was lots of debate on examples of what constitutes a good experience.
The world is changing across all generations. Behavior and attitudes colors the devices they buy, the services to which they subscribe and the applications they utilize. Come back to this blog because we will be writing extensively on what constitutes a great experience at work, at play and on the go. The industry must understand and anticipate shifts in user behaviors, desires and attitudes to optimize the experience and seize revenue opportunities.
SOURCE