Advanced Analytics
To further re-focus the previous microscope metaphor, today's carriers now have electron microscopes—they can drill down to the individual customer, device, and even social level. They can track social trending at large, utilize text analytics, or apply the science of social network analysis. There are many innovations occurring in this area, such as the churn prediction modeling from Idiro, which ranks customers as influencers, and can predict a customers likelihood to churn based on social connections with a high degree of accuracy. While only one part of CEM, advanced analytics can grant carriers a measurable competitive advantage and are an innovation worth mentioning.
Culture Change
For a carrier to truly implement an end-to-end CEM solution, it's not enough to just purchase software. That's like buying a weight-loss pill to cure obesity without the concomitant change in diet and exercise. Yuval Brisker, CEO, TOA Technologies, understands the culture change that must occur to enable CEM:
“Customer Experience Management (CEM) is not just the latest buzzword – it reflects a complete sea-change in the way companies think about and approach every interaction with their customers. CEM reflects an understanding that every customer interaction is important, and that every customer interaction is unique. From the moment the customer first makes contact with a company through purchase and delivery of goods or services and beyond, every touch point is critical to maintaining customer loyalty. These are all opportunities to strengthen the bond that customers feel for the brand.”
Becoming Proactive
Ultimately, the experience-driven carrier of the future is the product of a migration from “an event-based architecture to a metric/KPI-based architecture, from a reactive to a proactive culture,” Jeff Parker, Monolith Software’s CEO adds. Reaction without prevention is expensive over time, especially when it concerns today's multi-service subscribers. “Customer churn is a huge issue because it's much more costly to lose a customer today than it was in the past,” continued Parker. “If I lose a customer, I lose three services.”
While some vendors continue to tout everything under the sun as CEM, there are some very real innovations occurring that enable a transformation to an experience-focused service delivery architecture. Multi-layer unification, multi-channel interaction, advanced analytics, and a culture change are essential elements of innovative CEM strategies. It's not enough turn to the skies when illness strikes and pray that the leeches will drain the bad blood. The carrier of the future will embrace a new model of wellness that combines advanced microscopy with a scientific method, and for all intents and purposes, we can use the umbrella of CEM to capture that paradigm.
