Making the customer experience
by Sheetal Sharma
With the customer at the focal point of all business activities, a great amount of business energy is being devoted from a strategic perspective towards satisfying a customer’s needs. The telecommunications arena is no different. In fact, in a stiff market place as that of telecom, the customer truly rules. Innovative strategies, new technologies, products and plans are being developed and evolved constantly – keeping solely the customer in mind.
However, efforts are being made only from the CRM perspective – which is essentially uni-dimensional. The reason being that CRM deals with the ‘what the company thinks of the customer’ piece. The significant piece of ‘what the customer thinks of the company’ tends to get overlooked, which results in the jigsaw puzzle of Delighting the Customer never really getting complete!
This important other dimension is that of Customer Experience, or “the sum of all experiences a customer has with a supplier of goods or services, over the duration of their relationship with that supplier” according to one description. By focusing and investing in improving the Customer Experience, the company is really investing in developing long term relationships with its customers. With Customer Experience being the buzzword, service providers are coming up with on path breaking ideas and sashaying down innovative products to win and retain customers. But are these arrays of products – that claim to cater to every possible need of their customers, really helping? Are the service providers ensuring that the flood of newer products or features are not in fact confusing or overwhelming the customer? There lies a danger of running a blind race – that of offering more and more products to customers, in anticipation that the customer will use them and go through an enhanced experience out of using it!
This anticipation might not become a reality. Take for example, the bill payment service through mobile phones launched by some service providers. A text message is delivered to the customer for activation of this service on their mobile phones. However some customers might find it just too complex to use or be simply hesitant to try it out!
Efforts and measures need to be taken for getting customers to use the new experience enhancing features/products. Smart customers will do it anyways – they will want to try out different and new things instantly. It is the latent or the passive customers that need to be guided or shown the way. Innovative new products, features and services might just be the answer to their needs. A little hand holding might just be the solution! Going a step further by guiding and assisting such a customer in trying out and using the new solutions can go a long way. In the context of the earlier example, say after having launched the service and informing the customer about it, it would be a good idea to share the steps involved in activating/using it and the benefits that the customer can derive out of it. If this is not feasible using a text message, the same can be shared along with the monthly bills or over an email with the customer. Other ways could be by means of making courtesy calls or also by making the IVRs more capable to support this. Self-help portals need to be made intelligent and capable to be able to proactively guide and help the customers visiting them.
These methods involve cost to the service providers, you might say! But then aren’t the service providers already investing heavily in customer service and customer care innovations? A more targeted investment for customer care can help the service providers retain their customers and also tap a larger customer base and increase revenues as well. Once the customers appreciate the assistance and the enhanced experience, the returns will be truly manifold – both in terms of increased customer loyalty and repeat business. Therefore, Customer Experience enhancing innovations alone won’t do, making the customer truly experience them will determine the winner.
About the Author
Sheetal Sharma is a Project Manager with the CME unit, currently working on a project for a telecom major. She has worked in the areas of Customer Care and Enterprise Management, with key achievements in delivery excellence and knowledge management. Sheetal will blog on CRM and Customer Experience.
