Business Travel VS Telecomunication Technology

Its before Christmas and I have a crazy schedule, 5 countries  (8 destinations) in 6 days and its not off to the best start. My Thai air flight from Copenhagen to Bangkok was delayed for more than 3 hours due to technical reasons. Due to that I missed my connecting flight to Manila and was out on a Kuwait airlines flight, 5 hours later. One thing I notice is the paranoia in boarding the Kuwait air flight, despite the normal security check in the airport they require manual security check before entering the aircraft and double check on passport and identity… If not for a meeting I am about to miss I would have taken the Thai air flight later in the afternoon….

While in the air my attention turned in to the need for meeting face to face. Is it really needed? Why? Can't our advancement in telecommunications bridge the gap for the need for physical air travel? More than 20 years ago while at the university I have written a paper about holographic communications eliminating the need to travel vast distances for meetings. Today's technology allows us to be visually present remotely, this enable us to deliver presentation and conduct meetings across thousand of miles in real time. Mind you I value customer contact and interaction a lot. I actually think that 50% of a company executive's time should be spent with a customer while sales managers should be at 90%. The question here lies whether there is a need to travel or not. Some face to face meetings can not be replaced with today's telecommunication technologies, especially meetings with customers, however tomorrow's technologies will make it easier to be omnipresent. The beauty of being virtually present is that we can be more productive, more customer meetings in a day in various countries across multiple time zones.

Now, how does your telecommunication experience affect the need for physically traveling to meet your customers? Do bad internet connection cost you travel time and money?

Written on the 21st of December 2012, some say its the end of the world... 22nd came and the world is still here...

the future of OS wars….

Today, most of us who have some exposure to modern technology are aware of the the OS wars going on, battles rage by Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM. Little do we know the future of mobile OS is actually waged not for us adults but for young ones. We all know that smartphones are design for 2 year olds… and future wherein 10-year olds are  buying their own smart phones have arrived. Let's take my 10 year old daughter as an example, there are 23 kids on her class. 13 have iPhones, 5 have Samsung Androids and another 5 various Android devices. If you notice on this very typical example of a European school, there are no BlackBerry and no Windows Phone and all of the 10 who do not have iPhones yet want iPhone 5.

Let's pause for a bit and look the the no-shows. BlackBerry is releasing its OS 10 after more than a year of delay, it already has lost its edge and its customer base has abandoned it by allowing all other smart phones to connect to office and enterprise networks. Windows Phone claims to overtake iPhone and its 19% market share by 2016, a very ambitious goal, nevertheless a very daunting tasks. My view on my own little works is that Android and iOS will stay, BlackBerry might disappear and replaced by Windows Phone.

How about you? What do you think?

Why network probes are insufficient in managing customer experiences...

It is a fact that most wireless service operators today have deployed network probes to monitor network performance and gather insight on customer experiences. Although network probes or interface probes or deep packet inspection what ever they are called gather a lot of information they are still insufficient in fully understanding customer experiences. Why is that?

Let's start with a few issues in deploying network probes

• Very expensive, a deployment to a medium-size operator can cost millions

• Gathers a lot of data operators can not actually process or use

• Invasion of privacy and no subscriber opt-in and opt-out. By default subscribers are monitored without their knowledge

• Focused only on network, not on actual device

• Limited to on-network usage as a touch point

Most probe solutions, although it can potentially cover all subscribers is actually against privacy laws. Probes gather subscriber data and usage including websites they visit, calls they make, messages sent and received, data usage and a host of other things. Just imagine the customer outcry if they realize what kind of information the operator is collecting. Will this force subscriber to churn or will they put together a very expensive class action lawsuit to every operator that monitors them without their knowledge and acceptance?

Having said that of all customer touch points, probe is very limited to network usage, its in fact the most limited form of CEM solution. While most customers will most likely play games on their devices, ruse OTT applications, probes are limited to use of the network and does not really capture what negative experiences customers have. Now add instances where customers complain even though their usage is outside the network… On the extreme it is questionable whether probes are really effective. Take this scenario into consideration, a customer made a phone call, according to the probe record the call was cleared normally after 2 minutes. However in the device the subscriber call kept on going for another 8 minutes then dropped. Here you get a very unhappy subscriber (due to dropped call), lost revenue to the operator (can not bill the 8 minutes that the probe did not see) and a customer complain for bad experience.

Take into account customer experience in a data network, let's say that a customer is browsing the internet and he/she feels that browsing is very slow, even though he/she can see HSPA+on the phone's notification display. On this instance the probe sees that full HSPA+ speed is available to the subscriber but it fails to see the other applications in the background that are using bandwidth. Here you get a complaining customer and a confused engineering team wondering why they can not replicate the problem with any of their specialized test devices

Deployment of network probes are very expensive and considering that when a mobile operator moves to LTE they most likely can not use the same network probe and will need to make another big investment to be able to manage customer experiences. Further more of all the data network probes gather, how much are really fully processed and useful to the operator?

Having said that probes are of course useful in one way or another such as determining network performance. However it is insufficient in managing customer experiences, the investment for an operator is better spent somewhere else if they are looking for customer experience management solutions….

Word of Mouth is revolutionizing the digital world….

We live in a digital world, well at least for 2 Billion people who use the internet as part of their daily lives where information exchange is so fast that it is redefining how we consume information. Let's look back to 20 years ago, we have a web of information on the internet where we use the net find information. 10 years ago the advent of the social network age has changed the way we communicate with each other, social media now travels much faster than mass media. This social network revolution has started the social web, changing the way we use information call if web 2.5 if you like paving the way for a full semantic web or web 3.0. By 2020 technology will be available to link intelligence, actually we are now in the infancy of this technology with machine to machine communication. The experiences we have in consuming information, exchanging information and generating information are changing however there is one constant that seems to be inert to being human.

In 1944, the phrase Word of Mouth was coined/introduced and with that it has proven that we as human are more influenced by out peers than a bombardment of mass media advertising. Going through the evolution of the digital age this concept, Word of Mouth, has remain true to its roots and continuously growing. Powered by mobile, the internet and social networks everything we think, an event,  a product, a service or just about anything is  just a touch or a whisper away from propagating to the 2 Billion people who are connected to the internet daily. This is altering the way we experience things putting the 10 year old concept of Customer Relationship Management obsolete.

Knowing what we as consumers talk about regarding a wide range of topics has become a trend in assessing customer experiences, away from the traditional surveys that most CRM system favors… in fact the entire customer care concept is disappearing and being replaced by self care. Having said that the question is how should companies use this changing environment to improve their bottom line, after all we are in the middle of a financial crisis that who  ever gets it right will be the ones to thrive and prosper.

Do you want good customer service?

All of us at some point in time were customers, and at some point in time we encountered a customer service representative, either through phone, email or in person. What we all have in common is the desire to get an excellent service when we need it, where we want it and anytime we desire to. Having said that this is not always the reality. Is there an instance when you would have wished for better customer care, better customer support services?

To me that's in a lot of instances where I wish I get better customer care. One customer care structure I like is Telia in Sweden, especially their e-services for fixed and broadband service, not necessarily the waiting time in their shops which is dreadful. However in  their e-services they provide a lot of ways to contact customer care online from online chat to self diagnosis. I also like their premium support services, although I think it should be free for high value customers. The only thing I think Telia is missing today is to be able to have the same ease of getting customer care for mobile subscriber. And while we are at it, would it not be better if we as customers don't need to contact customer care for our service providers to notice and fix issues we are experiencing?

Who would not want an excellent customer care services and why should we not demand it from our service providers? At the end of the day we as customers bring revenue to them and in some case we bring high value due to our usage of communications services. The question is,  "what are our service providers doing today to improve the delivery of customer support services?"

Effectively Monitoring Customer Experiences

Customer Experience Management  is one of the hottest items in telecoms today where there are solutions popping up everywhere evangelizing that theirs is the best CEM solution around. Is there a single product out there that can truly claim a complete CEM solution? Looking at various solutions they can be grouped in 5 categories

• Sales focused solutions. This are sales point and web content solutions that are geared towards improving customers experiences while buying products and services. Such solution includes WebCRM, SAP, TeaLeaf, SugarCRM, Connectiva and others

• Social listening solutions. This includes web crawlers and text based analysis solutions that mine social network for conversations such as Respontek, Opentext, Satmetrix, Oracle and others

• Human agent based solutions that captures customers experiences while interacting with customer care agents such as the ones provided by Amdocs, Avaya, Zendesk, Pega, Marketforce and other similar solutions

• Network based solutions such as interfaced probes, DPIs and network traces where there are several providers of such solution including system vendors like NSN and Huawei

• Device based solutions that captures actual experiences, usage, behavior and interaction that customers have in using their devices when accessing services. Such solutions are provided by DingLi and other companies such as Carrier IQ

To fully monitor and measure customer experiences it must be done on all touch points from customers perception of a particular brand to the products and services they desired to buy to their interaction with customer service representatives and to their actual experiences in using such products and services.

Customer Experience Touch Points

All this touch points enable service providers and operators to determine how customers perceived your brand, it helps in determining what products and services are desired by consumers and which ones will they actually buy and use. Most important of touch point is knowing how satisfied consumers are on the products purchased and services used, including what phone applications they used. In terms of applications it is good to know how OTT applications or WiFi usage affect revenue generation and  profitability but most importantly how can service providers adapt to the age of AppEconomy. Social networks is of course a very important touch point nowadays especially what customers talk about you as a service providers and what they tell their friends.

Product of good customer experience in the AppEconomy age

In this day and age a good customer experience translate to happy customer and consequently loyal customer. With loyal customers any company can enjoy and reap the rewards of high profit margins, almost no churn and ever growing customer base…. Want a proof? Think Apple… as a shining example.

Customer happiness of course starts from good products and services that customer wants, desires and actually use. Remember how the iPod change the music industry forever, or how the iPhone have changed the way we use our phones and more importantly how it changed our lifestyle all together.

Most customers today, even the ones that hardly spend a cent for mobile services are very demanding. If they ever need to contact customer support they do not want to wait long for issues to be resolved, more importantly they actually do not want to experience any issues either from the services they get using the mobile network nor from their own devices. Customers are  kings and queens, they want to be pampered, treated like royalty and get the best of everything. Just imagine if customers issues can be resolved without any of them complaining, or that they can simply press a button to notify customer support of their issues with the confidence that it can be solved in no time.

A good Customer Experience Management (CEM) solution facilitates for better delivery of services and enhancement of services where they are needed and when they are needed. It helps ensure optimum performance of both network and services delivered to consumers. More importantly a good CEM solution helps service providers adapt to the new AppEconomy age, to ensure that services are delivered and at the same time assure shareholder value.

Are you ready for changing customer behavior?

With the  very fast uptake of OTT (Over The Top) applications and services such as Whatsapp, Viber, etc we have noticed from various CEM deployments globally that mobile phone user's behavior has changed dramatically. Its no longer just being mobile, no longer just being able to access the internet anywhere but more importantly being able to do all those at no cost. At no cost meaning the use of OTT applications that are easily available and used by subscribers when it is free to do so. Mobile phone users, especially in this economy are very cost conscious, they will wait to make phone calls until they are in a free network (e.g. WiFi) and use OTT application such as Whatsapp or Viber, an observation from more than 60 countries.

Some of this behavior are known to some operators, most are not aware of it and some have not even touched the tip of the ice berg.  Those who do know can align their strategies to ensure profitability and customer satisfaction at the same time. Having said that customer behavior varies from country to country, from network to network and its all up to the service providers to find out how their subscriber behaves, their preferences and usage. Finding out actual customer behavior from their devices is just the beginning, the challenge is would a service provider, big or small, adapt their services to this age of app economy….

How does Good Customer Experience equate to Happy Customers Everywhere?

I had interaction with Bernd Schmitt recently regarding customer happiness. If you don't know the guy he is the author of Happy Customers Everywhere, Big Think Strategy, Customer Experience Management and Experiential Marketing and is a professor of International Business of Columbia Business School. He have very good insight and of course real world cases about customer experience and customer happiness. Anyway his view is that customer happiness  can be achieved using various methods such as "feel good", "values and meaning", and engagement. I highly recommend that you read his book "Happy Customers Everywhere" especially if you are in sales and marketing, customer care/support, brand manager, entrepreneur or general management.

Being in the Telco Customer Experience Management (CEM) field, let me relate a few things that are relevant to Telcos. The basic premise is making customers happy so they keep using the services provided by their service provider. But how do you define customer happiness? Is it customer satisfaction? Let's go back to Bernd Schmitt for a second, according to him Customer happiness focuses on the positive emotional aspects of purchase and consumption. Customer happiness results from joyful, meaningful and engaging experience executed in creative and innovative manner. In my little Telco world Customer Happiness is a result of good Customer Experience. But why should you care about Customer Happiness? Does it have a big effect on the bottom line or the dreaded churn? Customer happiness  stems from customer satisfaction and customer delight. Customer satisfaction is where customer feels content while Customer delight is the joy they feel or the "WOW" factor. With happy customers you get loyal customers who helps promote your products and services. Think Apple… they managed to capture very loyal customers, almost fanatical even.

Its not easy to make and keep customers happy. The hardest part to deliver to a any customer is delight, the WOW factor. Usually that comes from a surprise, a very strong positive reaction arising from the unexpected. An event that a customer will never forget and will share to others. Having said that happiness can provide a tremendous value to a business, especially in this day and age of social media when customer feedback are easily shared and travels faster than wild fire. In the world of marketing there are 3 distinct ways to make customer happy namely pleasure, meaning and engagement. But how does that translate to real Telco world?

To make a customer happy they must feel good about a product or service. In terms of CEM, how can this be delivered?  How can their experiences be enriched? How can they savor such experience? And how can do you expand that for your customers? The Customers experience can be enriched by increasing touch points and attention to details. For example in the Telco world a customer touch point is limited to phone calls, messaging and data connectivity then the occasional interaction with customer care, this can be enriched by increasing the customer care touch point such as apart from providing a simple customer care hotline,  also provide a one touch portal on their smart phones. Let customers savor that experience by providing call centers and customer chat lines that are friendly but efficient. Expand that with new services that are targeted, tailor made and specific to a particular customer, making them feel more special. This can be achieved with a very good knowledge of the customer's behavior, preferences and usage.

Why targeted, tailor made and specific services to individual customers? Because the key to customer happiness is the core value of using a client-centered approach not only in managing customer relationships but most especially in the services that are being provided to them. Remember a customer's experience is personal, emotional and motivational…. threat every customer with a personal touch then they become happy and  loyal.

The most powerful ace on the deck of customer experience is engagement, that is engaging the customer to the point that the experience is a pleasant surprise. Think about the Coca Cola Open Happiness  campaign which is one of the most successful customer engagement campaigns ever. Its not only about having a good insight of the customers behavior and preferences but also going the extra distance to give a pleasant surprise the customer when they least expect it. For example giving the customer a rebate for experiencing degraded service performance without the customer complaining about it. An engaged customer is a customer that shares those pleasant experiences to others, especially as mobile communications becomes more data centric, sharing content and experiences becomes more common.

Having said this what are you doing today to improve your customer's experiences? Are you dedicated as a service provider in making your customers happy?

Who will win the Mobile OS wars?

With the global smartphone penetration expected to increase 3 billion smartphones in 5 years, or half of the world's pollution the positioning of various OS platforms are becoming more and more important. Now considering the various devices powered by smartphone OS then that market far exceeds half of the world's population. With such a very big and lucrative market OS and platform developers continue to fight for market share, iOS and Android is now very powerful, however some platforms have fallen or falling. The most glaring example is BREW and Symbian. Although there are four times more devices shipped by Symbian compared to Windows phone devices in 2012 they do now have the ecosystem to generate the kind of fire works that iOS and Android are currently enjoying. 60% of BREW developers indicates they will stop using it since its at the end of its life cycle and Qualcomm is quietly preparing for its discontinuation. Symbian has the highest rate of developer abandonment amongst all platform at 52%, especially that Nokia have declared that Microsoft is its preferred smartphone platform.

Vision Mobile mapped the performance of various OS below.

Blackberry is never far behind BREW and Symbian and is very close to becoming an endangered if not extinct platform. RIM has significant difficulties competing with iOS and Android even considering the expected release of the BB10 platform this year especially with email and instant messaging commonly available across  all platforms, Blackberry has lost its edge. As a result RIM investors are pressing the company to break up and sell all its assets. 14% of BlackBerry developers are abandoning the platform, even though the platform still brings considerable revenue to developers, the main reason being the very weak sales and market position of BlackBerry devices.

Samsung's Bada is next in line in the list of platforms being abandoned, with 49% of developers planning to drop it, it will end up to be an pure South Korean platform that is immature, substantially buggy and only limited to low-end smart phones. Samsung is losing its bargaining power towards Google's android which is now also penetrating the low cost smart phone market.

Windows Phone, the new kid on the block is the new cool: Even though  Windows Phone sales continue to disappoint, a year on, with 2.6 million devices sold in Q1 2012, according to Gartner, interest among developers continues to build up. The majority of developers who plan to adopt a new platform, plan to adopt Windows Phone (57%). Overall, 42% of developers using iOS and Android indicate that they plan to adopt Windows Phone and while the intention is slightly stronger among developers using mobile web (44%) or other, less popular platforms, intention doesn’t seem to vary significantly by the platform developers currently use.

Now there is a duopoly between Android and iOS, who will be the most dominant is still to be determined, although  Android is currently on a clear lead, there is a threat coming from HTML 5. Cross platform development is on the rise with 72% of iOS developers using Android and 64% of Android developers using iOS. The future of smart phones are pegged on this 2 giants. However for cross platform functionality HTML 5 is entering that space. This means that the choice between native applications and HTML 5 will be a cat and mouse game, where native applications will alway be in the forefront in terms of capabilities and feature set, HTML 5 will leverage in its cross platform functionalities. As Tom Hume, founder of FuturePlatform argues, “User expectations will always be formed by the native platforms, and native will always be a step ahead of HTML, as that’s in the interest of platform vendors”. He explains that “today, HTML5 performs poorly with new user interface paradigms like Microsoft’s Metro UI. Tomorrow, HTML5 will need to catch up with ambient sensing. It’s always going to be a cat and mouse game.”



The question is how will shape the ever growing smart phone market. So take your picks. As for AmanziTel being in the Customer Experience Management sphere, we support most of the platforms today and will continue to do so as long as there are consumers using this platforms. Although we have focused mostly on Android and iOS, while Windows Phone is of interest the platform is too closed for higher penetration amongst developers. How about you, will you pick one platform from the other?

Solving poverty problems through sports

Last month I had the opportunity to meet Cesar Guerin, who is poised to become the 4th man to run around the world, and the first Filipino to do so. This quest is not just a personal trophy but more importantly to raise awareness of poverty in the Philippines and alleviating such conditions through sports. The man himself is very admirable such a feat is very hard to achieve, yet he makes it simple by running marathon distance every day, unassisted.

Now on the quest to alleviate poverty through sports, it is definitely achievable even in the Philippine. Manny Pacquiao is a glaring example from rags to riches and fame through boxing. The challenge is how to put that into context in a large population such as the Philippines. Only exceptional athletes are paid handsome amounts and there are only a few of them. For such concept to work it is needed that who ever succeeded should give back to development of the community and its infrastructure so the next generations will have a better foundation for their future, that is the only way it will work. Think about it, most athletes who became successful never really look back to the community where they came from, they just wanted to leave and be better of personally. It is of course a personal decision, however if everyone can be convinced that there is a better future for others if they are given the chance then the quest of alleviating poverty will work. Its not just about the sports in itself, its all about infrastructure and education to start with that enable poorer communities to prosper.

Enhancing Customer Experience

For a Customer Experience Management solution to be truly complete it must include a way to enhance customer experiences. In the past customer experience as perceived by network operators can be enhanced by optimizing network performance for voice, however this is no longer true, especially in the Western world where smart phone penetration has exceeded 60% of all mobile phones sold. In this growing world of OTT applications, traditional voice services, usage and revenue are diminishing very fast. Data is the killer application.

Operators are now changing the way they bill their subscribers for usage plan and this trend is moving Eastward. Last year the most smartphones shipments are to China. It's only a short matter of time before the entire population of this planet will all be having smartphones. As a service provider would you like to be left out? Of Course Not! The time is now to care about actual customer experiences on actual customer devices. Gone are the days of perceived quality or simulated experience, it is now the time of actual and real-time customer experiences. Customers want excellent services right here right now.

Enhancing customer experiences on their mobile devices can be done in various ways. In DingLi-AmanziTel's little world customer experiences can be monitored using native device apps, embedded device apps, deep packet inspection and network recordings while enhancing customer experiences are through device applications that promotes better interaction between customers and their service providers. This includes enablers that ensure services are available even when delivery of that service is not possible, applications that allows customers to send feedback that are pro-actively attended to  by the service provider, and providing offers that are actually meaningful to the customer.

In the West customer is King, in the east customer is like God. Its about time to care about actual and real time customer experience, its the future.

Mobile phone user behavior is changing rapidly, should it be tracked?

In 2011 the total number of smartphones shipped is around 490 Million , this means that by end of last year 1 in every 3 phone is a smartphone and half of those have Android OS.

The use of voice over data is also accelerating  with OTT applications such as  Skype, Viber and Tango installed in most smartphones. The highest revenue derived from data services were recorded in Asia, this trend is not slowing down and continually gaining traction. With all these facts why do some operators still do not care about their subscribers experience while using their data network. Is that because most smartphone users are connected to a WiFi network more than 60% of the time?

Perhaps it is due to the fact that most mobile operators have probes and DPIs deployed in their networks that supposedly records and captures customer experiences across the entire subscriber base. Essentially operators spying on their customers without the mobile user knowing it. Probes and DPIs capture network performance and a lot of information across all subscribers but it misses what matters most to each mobile user, their mobile devices.  As a casual mobile phone user how do you feel if you learned that your mobile operator is secretly recording how you are using your mobile phone? To capture customer experience on mobile devices, the user should grant their consent in doing so and this is best done  through native applications where user has control of the application instead of embedded applications that are pre-installed in devices.

I think its about time to give the mobile phone user a voice on how they want their experiences to be monitored or recorded by their service providers. If you have a smartphone, chances are you do not have to be secretly tracked by your operator, everything can simply be in your device and you have control over it.  So if you use any smartphone such as an iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone or even Symbian based smartphones it is time to speak up and let your voice be heard!

Along the foot steps of facebook and silicon valley

Facebook's IPO is the current talk of the town. It even set its own price for its shares which most analyst think is undervalued never the less Mark Zuckerberg will pocket a cool 1 B$ and his shares will be worth more than 17.6B$. A very good pay off after a few years. There's no questions how great Facebook has become can even afford to snub bankers putting Silicon Valley over Manhattan.

Looking at this achievement and how it comes about is not to look within Facebook itself but in a grander scale, Silicon Valley the playground of large tech companies, exciting start-ups and most importantly industry collaboration. So why are successful tech companies in Silicon Valley? Being part of a cluster initiative in Sweden, Mobile Heights we try to emulate the success of Silicon Valley. However there is something in Silicon Valley not present in the Oresund's region, a trait, a very simple one... Inclusivity. The culture of ensuring everyone is included and involved, until Sweden and Denmark acquires this trait it will never emulate Silicon Valley, and I stand by that word.

In Sweden, Denmark and the rest of Western Europe, it's never about inclusivity, rather its about exclusivity. This is ingrained in the culture and very difficult to change. To emulate Silicon Valley inclusivity must start from the onset, from the schools, from the home so the next generation will have this trait as they embark on the journey to future of financial success.

Let's take my daughter as an example, who grew up in a typical Western European environment who had her birthday months ago but will have her birthday party together with her current best friend in the coming weeks. They were listing who should they invite and all I heard was why they should not invite her friends she used to play with and their mothers actually encourage them not to since its a lot of work to have more children in a party. Recently she complained she was not invited on another friend's birthday party. If you have not picked up what I wanted to say, here it is. From childhood, Western European children are encouraged to be exclusive and not inclusive. This carries on all the way to business where it is never inclusive, that's why Silicon Valley will stand on its pedestal for a considerable period of time.

I believe that if we want to change that and be inclusive it must start from the most basic institution, the home and family. We must practice what we preach and have our children embrace being inclusive... only then can we truly claim we have set the real foundations towards emulating Silicon Valley's success.

Are you paying for too much mobile data usage?

While reading news on the web, I noticed that CNN published an article regarding additional cost mobile users get when using too much data. The CNN Article can be found here. What surprised me was that AT&T  only has overage (when too much serviced is used) for data usage. This is surprising especially that AT&T have been using Carrier IQ in almost all if not all of its customer devices. I would assume that having an embedded CEM device agent makes this alerts easy to implement, not only that its very easy to implement (at least in the Customer IQ platform) but at least subscribers can have their own alerts.

Further to that subscription or usage charges should be visible to to every mobile subscribers either post-paid or pre-paid. At least with pre-paid subscribers they won't incur the cost. On my Telenor subscription I get notification only while roaming, it would be good to have the same find of overage notifications while I am not roaming at least it helps me control my phone bill amounts.

Thinking about it it should be easy enough to write an application that notifies mobile users when their potential cost of either roaming, data usage or simply phone calls are exceeding a particular limit. Now I wonder if INQUSO have that kind of policy control....

What your mobile operator and service provider do not want you to know?

A few days ago CNN published an article on its technology section about what mobile operators and cellular service providers do not want their customers to know. It centers on an application from carrier compare showing a comparison of various service providers/operators. The application is crowd-sourced and cost $1.99, a big amount of money for such an app compared to some really good mobile games costing less than a dollar. The CNN article on comparing networks can be found here.

Being curious and having little knowledge about such applications, I can't seem to understand that the hoopla is all about and why CNN put such worthless coverage on its news feed. Come to think of it similar applications have been available since 2009 and they are far better showing coverage and performance of competing mobile networks; better yet they are free. Well of course carrier compare is free if you don't mind the advertisements.

As a mobile user will you pay 2 of your precious dollars to know how the operator you did not subscribe to performs on a specific area? I am not so sure, but as one of my American colleagues explained to me in America, people will pay for such app. Now that got me thinking why don't we push our Customer Experience Management app in America for subscriber to pay a dollar :-) but then it will contradict on what we believe in that such application should be free of charge to the user and free from advertisements... Maybe one day I will bite the bullet and will do so, but that is not today.

On another point how will operators and service providers react, will they push more of Carrier IQ applications hidden to the user to know that their subscribers are checking out the competition? I believe in 2 things... (1)subscriber has the right to know (2)subscriber has the right to the best service possible. Having said that the network operator or service provider must provide the level of service they guarantee their customers will have, and at the same time keep their subscribers informed. This can be achieved with  CEM applications that are native to a smart phone, has opt-in and opt-out capabilities and has value to the user such as customer self care or information about the services they are receiving.

Where and when does innovation start?

A few night ago, my 10 year old daughter talked to me and declared that in 10 years we will all be drying with automated blowers after a shower. This statement has taken me by surprise, and I naturally asked why she thinks so. Her explanation is that showers are tight places to dry your self with a towel and that the cost of producing towels plus constant washing is more expensive than the cost of of blow drying. She actually has a point, if you look at most hotels, towels are washed everyday and in most cases changed every month, a wasteful exercise. Now it dawn to me the question of what triggers innovation, how does it start? Do we start innovating because we do not like the way current things work? Out of necessity? Out of curiosity?

Let's discount the fact that some people are keener to innovate than others and focus on why. In the telecoms world, we innovate to solve common issues and make them simpler, think iPhone. Now's let's apply that to software, we innovate to make life a bit easier, think of business intelligence solutions. Clearly to me innovation is driven by the need to improve something and at the same time generate financial returns. If I look back at AmanziTel 4 years ago, we started processing drive test data and now we are in the forefront of end2end CEM and SQM. We got here because of the need to simplify the the workload of our customers, make their jobs a bit easier but more importantly keep their own subscribers/customers happy and satisfied. 

I read an Ascom press release two days ago about TEMS visualization supporting various data formats, and have the question that why are they re-inventing the wheel? Actix was there 15 years ago with proprietary software, we innovated in that space 4 years ago with open source solutions and have moved on. Perhaps to some innovation comes late and starts to play catch up. I still believe that the future of telecoms service delivery is in actual customer experience, if done right ti can replace all expensive SQM systems today. That statement actually did not come from me but from a large operator group after seeing what we can do for them.

Mobile World Congress, is it worth Exhibiting?

DingLi exhibited in the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, albeit late in signing up, luckily a company pulls out and space becomes available.  Every such event where you spend hundreds of thousand of dollars in the cost of space alone then add up a few more thousand for staff travel, accommodation and meals, its a huge marketing expense. The question that always comes to mind is it worth the cost? To justify the cost the returns has to be measure up. For DingLi, branding wise I think its worth the cost since DingLi is not very well known outside China.

However let's pause for a moment and see if there really is a value for money in attending such event, so the premise here is that the cost you spend for the show should match the cost you will spend if you are to schedule face to face meeting with potential partners. Let's say you have 10 staff, each having a total cost (accommodation, travel, meals) of 5000$ each, making the total cost of attending say 150,000$. Now, let's assume that the cost of meeting a customer f2f is around 3000$ (flight, accommodation, etc). To justify the cost of attending you should have at least 50 meetings/presentations/demonstrations during the first 3 days of the exhibition. The last day is always the day where everyone goes home. If you did not have at least 50 meetings or presentations. In the case of DIngLi that featured 4 of each solutions to the show we have agreed on 8 trial deployments on one solution alone, that is Customer Experience Management. If we take that particular CEM solution we only had about 17 presentations or demos to potential customers, which resulted to 12 agreed trials, 3 follow-meeting to set-up trials,  and 2 competitors came spying on what we do. I think we have a very good hit rate considering that 88% of presentations and demos resulted to actionable results. The ultimate measure of course is turning this presentations and demos to actual order and deployment, with that we can then conclude that spending marketing budget in the Mobile World Congress is worth it. Perhaps if you have products and solutions that are valuable to the customer then the marketing cost is fully justified.

I touched upon competition spying on products, I think its not a problem since there are no secrets told during this events, however to visit the booth with without a badge and business card and not identifying your self, is just dirt cheap. Sometime in the future you will meet such person again… and maybe he or she might ask for employment, the question is will you employ such a person?  I welcome talking to competition to see how we measure up, however I also welcome a truly open discussion

Publishing Your App in the Market, App Store and App World

Are you planning to develop application for Android, or iPhone or Blackberry? Recently I have had the luxury to observe the differences  between Google's  Android Market, Apple's App Store and Blackberry's App World. My observation is from direct experience in publishing applications to each platform.

The Android Market is the most open. As long as your apps satisfy their basic requirements, it gets publish. It's also the most friendly in getting your apps advertised… its Google's main business after all to make money in advertising.  The process of publishing application, advertising and monetizing is very easy that I am convinced my 9 year old daughter can do without assistance. The AdMob advertising works wonders, getting our app widespread impressions at a single click, so far within a day of getting our personal safety and security app called Yelpz, we got over a thousand installs… Amazing!

The App Store I think is the most strict, they really review your app into the tiniest possible detail. The first time we submitted our Customer Experience Management app called GEOptimA to the App Store they came back with 2 comment on 2 items that we missed based on their definition of what's possible and not, and to that end of those is simply a very tiny mistake inside the source code that calls for it to run in the background. I am impressed by their thoroughness.  After a change and upgrade on capabilities it took them 3 days to approve the revised app.

Now App World gives you the least friendly experience. After the app (GEOptimA with SOS monitoring) was uploaded to the App World, there was no feedback for 3 weeks then suddenly the app was approved. It gave the impression that they simply took the time to wait then approved. I also have difficulties finding ways to promote the app in the Blackberry App World… I guess maybe because I do not use a Blackberry phone since their service is not available in Sweden…

I can't say much about Microsoft Phone, since we are still finalizing the app for publications, I would like to see they are being bench marked with Google's Android.. The phone interface is nice though…a but rough on the edges but comparable to Android or iOS.

Customer Experience Directly from Mobile Devices

Recently there have been a huge wave of public outcry on Carrier IQ's embedded CEM solution in the US. The issue is now even being called for congressional hearing as Lawmakers seek hearing on Carrier IQ privacy issues. The controversy on this is best summarized by Jaikumar Vijayan's article behind the issue and an article by Zachary Lutz explains what it is all about.

What does this mean for us who are in the telecoms industry? Does this mean that we should now all drop our CEM solutions because of privacy concerns? To my little world I believe we should not, but we should also avoid the pitfalls that carrier IQ have gotten themselves into. Managing customer experience is important to the network operators to ensure they deliver the best service and the correct level of service to each subscriber. It is equallly important to subscribers so they do not get bombarded with advertisement and offers that they do not want aside from the satisfaction of a good mobile / cellular network service.

Subscriber activities are actually being captured by the network even without the device agents by using network probes that records everything about a subscriber activity. This solution is not only expensive but  can also  be considered as breaking privacy laws, since it captures subscriber activity without the knowledge of the subscriber. The question to my mind is what CEM solution is actually efficient, effective and acceptable by subscribers or mobile phone users. There is no holy grail here but I can offer an answer. Native applications.

The main problem with embedded application or network probes is that the subscriber and phone user are not aware of the records being made, there is no opt-in or opt-out possibilities. With a native app the subscriber or phone user can easily install such CEM app if they want to and can easily remove it as well. Awareness I think is the key.

For network operators perhaps the best approach is to only have device agents on the subscriber phone to solve issues notice by the subscriber instead of recording everything the subscriber phone is doing. One such application is GEOptimA.

Traditional Drive Testing is at RISK!

With the advent of advance CEM solutions such as mobile applications either embedded or native that captures user experiences directly from mobile phones the need for drive testing has been reduced. In some vendors and even in some operators they claimed that there is no longer a need for drive testing. How true is this? Is this possible?

In drive testing we normally simulate user experiences based on calls, data sessions and other test scenarios conducted where potential subscribers are located. Now with so many smart phones in the market the focus has moved towards testing smart phone performance and user experiences where they use the mobile network services, especially data services. Since 2006, new breed of testing companies have poped out, they do not simulate tests rather they capture actual user experiences. The difference is that in traditional drive testing, low level messages such as layer 3 are captured in CEM applications it is purely user activities that are captured.

For trouble shooting purposes, drive testing is hard to replace. However for gathering customer experience, behavior and usage then drive testing is no longer the answer. To fix network issues and improve network performance then there is still a need for the traditional drive testing since the lower level messages has to be captured, measured and analyze to adjust the correct radio, transmission or core network parameters.

Having said this hybrid CEM solutions have started to emerged in the market. This employs a combination of passive testing (pure CEM, capturing user experiences, behavior and usage) and active testing (similar to drive testing but without the traditional laptop based equipment). With this hybrid solution it is now possible to deploy commercial handsets preloaded with advance firmware to thousands of subscribers supplemented with the traditional CEM to millions of subscribers By doing this it gives network operators everything they are looking for. A solution that is easy to deploy, captures actual subscriber experience and at the same time provides the low level information needed to fix network issues.

With the correct solution deployed, every subscribers contribute into improving their experiences in  the mobile network they are using and at the same time ensures they are provided the best service possible.