With the market for cellular customers now saturated across most of the developed world, retaining existing customers has become a major priority for mobile operators. This is because it is demonstrably more cost-effective to retain existing customers than to attempt to win new ones from their competitors.
This is good news for subscribers too, as it means that operators are working hard to provide them with the best possible user experience in order to retain their user base. Various analyst research and media announcements at this week's TM World Management forum in Dublin has shown that the rapidly growing number of smartphone users are the most demanding in their expectations, and also generate the highest ARPU, so operators are focusing their efforts firstly on keeping this sector happy. According to a keynote from Facebook EMEA director of operations Colm Long, over 80 per cent of telecoms operators are claiming that having Facebook on their platform is imperative.
For this reason, it is my view that this is why tools that provide a holistic customer experience management (CEM) view are now being widely sought. These solutions can enable communication service providers to continuously monitor and manage their customers proactively, and in real time, through one interactive interface. The objective of CEM is to firstly reduce order fall out, then establish and validate the overall quality of service and billing experience of mobile customers. This is in addition to providing an insight into the types of users and devices that are being used to access data services. If specific customers appear to be having a less-than-ideal user experience, the service provider can not only improve the level of service experience for them but also target special offers that may encourage loyalty. If Dublin has taught us one thing this week, it is that there is growing pressure mounting on service providers to manage and grow the revenue from their customer base. For this reason alone, using some form of CEM solution for a more granular insight into customer activity is becoming increasingly important moving forward.