The maturity level of highly developed telecommunications markets has reached a point where classic management methods are not always adequate to generate a sustainable competitive advantage. Customers perceive many products to be interchangeable. So telecommunications providers find themselves confronted with the growing challenge of setting themselves apart from competitors and securing the sustained loyalty of their customers. Somehow they must find a way to conduct their business effectively despite the dilemma of declining revenues and inflationary customer expectations.

A study conducted by Detecon emphasizes that more and more decision-makers and experts are recognizing the potential which the systematic shaping of customer experiences (customer experience management: CEM) offers in terms of differentiation from the competition. It is based on the determination of customers’ needs as well as expectations and their perception of performance. This information should be rounded out by companies taking a look at their strengths and weaknesses from the customers’ perspective, thus establishing a starting point for the reliable performance of the basic services expected by customers and for ensuring customer satisfaction. Finally, elements of enthusiasm building on this foundation lead to a unique customer experience. The piloting of measures, the measurement of their influence on customer loyalty and turnover, and the roll-out of the most efficient measures secure the sustained economic value of CEM.

Learn what your customers really want

Excellent customer experience management presumes that you “know what customers really want”; otherwise, you will be unable to recognize systematically the starting points for the optimization. CEM focuses its attention on the company’s orientation to customer needs – the so-called customer centricity. The ideal experience cannot be realized unless a company’s products and services satisfy the actual needs and requirements of customers. So the first step is to find out what these needs and requirements are. Customer surveys, behavior analyses, mystery shopping, analyses of contact reasons and feedback are only some of the methods that can be used for this purpose. You should be careful to include all customer touchpoints and all business-related events at this time. Since the collected information is maintained or gathered in various units of the company such as service, marketing, product development, and market research, it is absolutely essential that the scattered data be consolidated. One possible approach would be to set up a centralized customer experience intelligence department where the parts of the puzzle can be pieced together and general conclusions can be drawn, then returned as feedback to the pertinent business units. Such a method ensures that the information is regularly incorporated into customer-centric segmentation, brand design, product development, and service design.