Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Phones.... smarter phones and how we interact with this devices


Since we have now deployed our Customer Experience Management Solution on almost all mobile phone platforms namely Android, iOS, blackberry, Symbia and Windows, I got a firsthand look on how customer experiences interaction with this phones… The surprise to me is on how bad iPhone is especially once you start using clever Android phones…. You see I moved from Symbian to iPhone and was very satisfied with that, however getting to use both iPhone 4S  and Android 2.3 phone  at the same time, Android offers better convenience and user experience…. Maybe it’s because of the applications I use where Android allows more things that can be done and had.. which equates to a much better user experience…. Whatever it is I now understand why people who starts using Android never goes back to iPhone… too bad that Steve Jobs is no longer around….

Speaking about Steve jobs.. I have been reading a wonderful book about his principles written by Carmine Gallo, mind you I like that’s it hard bound and used high quality prints and paper.. it reflects on what’s inside the book… A good reading while on a long flight… Now the question is… Do you want to live like Steve Jobs?

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

How fast do you analyze 65,000,000 phone calls? and 7TB of data?


It’s been half a year since AmanziTel merge with DingLi and we are starting to feel like we are part of the family… One of the first signs is co-branding, starting with the logo…. The next steps is aligning our products and solutions. In the past we relied heavily on open source deployment models where the platform is readily available and applications are bolted to the platform to deliver a particular version to a customer. Now we are doing a dual approach, wherein off –the-shelf solutions are being made available to potential customers. Does this affect the way we develop our products.. yes in a small way.

However the large effect is on the way we market and brand our products. Gone are the multiple applications and solutions.. To stay are combined applications that form our solutions based on merging various applications. For example NetShield is a combination of NetView, Automated Optimization and Change Tracker…. Soon we will have ultimate protection in NetShield stemming from our large scale what if simulation models in use at various infrastructure projects from Oil & Gas, Transportation, Energy,  and yes Telecoms…..

Considering that our adhoc report creation on 65,000,000 records utilizing a 7 TB storage space takes a mere 100ms, I see very good potential for the solutions… they are game changing and in a way life altering…. Once you deploy you will never go back to slower solutions. The question is do you have the courage to try…..and be hooked....


Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Blogs and Customer Engagements, do they go together?


With short flights recently it was not convenient to write blogs, somehow my blog writing time is associated to the flight durations I have on my trips. The longer the flights, the more opportunity for me to write blogs. Perhaps I simply ran out of things to do in the plane…. The suite in A380s, is a must try in the sense… more things to do while flying.

I would normally fly economy extra on long distance trips since the cost is a lot less compared to business class, while the leg room are good enough. However the seats are still the same like in economy and so is the service… Now I wonder if that additional 100$ on a 12 hour flight is a money well spent or it better to fly business and pay 1000$ more? I seem to have found the answer in a recent flight to Jakarta.. If the plane is full then there is no advantage in economy extra since shoulder room is still too small while the seat don’t recline more than 110 degrees…. I can tell you it’s a very painful especially if you spend 7 hours of the flight working or using a laptop and the other 5 hours eating and trying to fall asleep.  And with meetings right after a long flight it’s a hard thing to repeat. Of course we cannot all fly business class due to the high cost… but then again airlines should improve creature comfort a little bit, giving us a much better customer experience…..

Mentioning customer experience, the best measure I think is directly from how the customer feels during that time and not a survey afterwards… since us being humans tend to amplify or tone down our experiences based on our mood at the time we are asked of the experience. Now if we apply that to telecoms… how soon do we forget the good experience and remember the bad ones?