Letter from the Editor

By: Tim Young

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.”
-Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos

As a father, I try my best to make sure that I am not raising a spoiled, entitled child. I don’t want her to expect instant gratification or give up when a task becomes too difficult. I want her to dig deep and persevere.

And there’s a little irony in that because, as a parent, I am completely spoiled. I hear that people once had to travel to places known as “stores” to buy diapers and such. Not me. Every month or so, Amazon.com sends me a big ol’ box of them. Subscription diapers: we are truly living in the future.

I also hear that if parents wanted to find informative, creative games or television programs, they had to search far and wide for them and sometimes even be prepared to watch whatever show a network felt like showing at the time the network felt like showing it. Not me. My friends Netflix, YouTube, iPad and Roku ensure that a few precious minutes of occasional child pacification, are the matter of a tap of an icon. (Judge away, anti-technology parents. I can handle it.) 

The sometimes-difficult job of raising a toddler has been made easier in many ways thanks to what amounts to streamlined product delivery. Yearn for a simpler time if you’d like, but the modern alternatives to these customer experiences aren’t simple. What was just another chore on a very long list a few short years ago is now easy and direct. I save time (which I can spend with my family) and usually a bit of money (which I can use to support local businesses to balance out the money I funnel to the Amazon kingdom).

Of course, managing what amounts to a retail experience is one thing. Providing a service consistently and indefinitely is quite another. How can CSPs ensure that their customers feel like invited guests any time and all the time? That’s the realm of customer experience management (CEM).

In this issue, Pipeline explores the latest on the customer experience. We talk about how consumers pick their providers and what drives them to churn. We examine changing customer expectations as they embrace the digital lifestyle, and discuss how personalization can help optimize the customer experience. We also bring you experiences from CSPs on what works and what doesn’t when it comes to improving customer experience, and help you prioritize your CEM plans by laying out what matters most to end users.

As always, you are a very welcome invited guest here at Pipeline. If there’s anything we can do to improve YOUR experience, drop us a line at editor@pipelinepub.com.

Enjoy!