Embedding the customer in the center of our organizations

In a world where product differentiation is no longer an advantages it is very important that an organization differentiates in how good it delivers the promised customer services.  Most customers today are expecting only the very best service, even if that price for service is dirt cheap. Let's say I dine in an Island in the Philippines, I pay 10$ for an excellent meal coupled with an excellent friendly service so if I dine in London and spends 100$ I will expect the same level of service. If I don't get a good service I might not come back again or might give a bad rating for the place in Yelp or any other social channels. You see I am not the only one with this way of thinking. Do you think the same? Talking of London, I have been to Nobu and to Ramsey's I was surprise to spend less in Ramsey's where the service was a lot better and the food was excellent… Now I can say that Ramsey's is a very good example of providing a wonderful customer service, you leave happy and want to be back again as soon as you can.

All customer experiences are rooted to the people who provides them. When it comes to businesses, the customer experience is all that matters, most specially on service industries like Telecom. So the question to most if not all executives is "How do you embed customer centricity in your organizations?". There is no easy answer to this, there are no shortcuts. Its true that we train our front line staff to deliver a good service, but delivering a good service is no longer just a service, it is giving a positive experience that counts. To ensure that we provide positive experiences, our customers expects us to take the extra mile, go a bit further to give them delight and happiness. Doing should not break the bank either, after all as a business we aim for profitability and as executives we are judge on profitability by our shareholders. In April, at the CEM Summit in Dubai, Liz McSorley of du (VP  Customer Experience) will share how they do it in du.

For a product and technology led company like AmanziTel, we ensure that customer centricity is embedded in our corporate DNA by ensuring that each and every one of us understand and embrace customer centricity and the importance of ensuring happiness to our customers. We do this in various ways

• Customer centricity starts from the top, from our board members to our CEO down to our software developers.

• We hire resources who are naturally service and innovation oriented, so no matter how difficult our deployments get we continue to strive to provide happiness to each and everyone of them.

• It is embedded in our product and service design. When we design a product, especially new innovations and ground breaking product, in every decision we take our customer needs and happiness are taken into consideration. We call that customer driven development.

• We treat every customer request with utmost care and respect. Its like having your own baby being born when customer request arrives and ensuring that he or she is always happy and that he or she is raised and developed the right way.

• In times when we are not perfect, we ensure that we make up for our shortcomings by continuously delighting our customers in our own little ways and make that extra effort.. Walk the extra mile…

• We empower our front line resources to make key decisions in delivering customer happiness when they are put on those awkward situations.

• We always keep in mind that our customers are serving Billions of subscribers that at the end of the day each of our customers will have to deliver that happiness to their billions of subscribers

• For each and every one of us in the company we will always ensure our customer's happiness in our own little ways

And since its Valentine's day let me say we love our customers and we love the billions of subscribers they have.

How are you giving happiness to your customers?

While in London I got to observe how we in the Telco industry perceive improving experiences though better service delivery, improved processes and consistency in varying channels. In the beginning of April there is another CEM for Telecoms Summit tin Dubai, organized by IQPC. As you see the Middle East is a perfect example as to where customer experience should be improve by more importantly give telco customers a better way to connect with customer service by eliminating waiting time. Next time you call a customer service number,  or join a customer service chat, why not demand not to wait? And demand that the customer service representative not ask you tons of questions but tell you directly how to fix problems you experienced?

One thing telco customers will never see or experience with their service providers are the bad and rude services provided by SAS. I flew an SAS flight to London, not only the flight attendants were very rude but also the cabin seals came off during landing. On the way back to Copenhagen, its the same constant experience.. The cabin crew is very rude. At least SAS consistently give you a very bad experience… I think they should send their customer experience representatives to a CEM Summit to learn a thing  or to on how mobile operators are providing delight to their customers.

As an ordinary consumer, are we able to bring delight to others and at the same time bring happiness to ourselves? Last week we were exploring Augmented Reality, some brought the idea forwards, after several days of discussions a product concept is born, a few weeks from now I assume it will be released publicly. Once it is released anyone of us can manipulate reality the way we always wanted it, not just to impress our friends but more importantly bring happiness to others who are beneficiaries of this augmented reality. Just imagine making someone smile by including them on an exhilarating experience you are having…. Or let them experience the joy you are currently experiencing and then share it on social media real time.

What's the best way to measure network experiences? Should you be concern as a subscriber?

This week I am attending the CEM in Telecoms and was in a panel discussing the best way to measure network experiences. Is there really a best way to measure what a subscriber experienced while interacting with the network? I am most familiar with the mobile network so let me share that that... There are several ways to measure network experiences such as

• Network traces and recordings. All your interaction as a subscriber is recorded in the network, whether you have agreed with your mobile operator or not to record your interactions.
• Probes and DPIs. Same as in network recordings your interaction are recorded whether you like it or not, but more importantly all your usage information (user plane) are also recorded such as which websites have you visited, which applications you used, etc
• Device agents. This are applications either embedded or native that runs on your device and records your network interaction. In an embedded application like the default monitoring system device manufacturers employ or the one from Carrier IQ you are not able to opt-in, meaning you have no choice but to be recorded. In native application you can opt-in or opt-out much like you do with WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, etc.
• Drive test. This does not actually measure your actual network experience but it tries to simulate your usage of the network.

All monitoring  involving the network are done discretely, meaning without the subscriber knowing it. What ever the mobile network operator does with this recording is their own choice, or what ever the person who has access to this recording do is his or her own choice. In a way this measure how good or bad your experiences are based on a the networks perspective. Although it does not care whether you have a bad or good experience.

Device based measurement I think is the best way to measure actual network experiences, but it should be on a native level meaning individual subscribers can choose whether they want their experiences measured or not. On the device all experiences a subscriber have is measured even his or her own perception of the experience. Let's take the classic and annoying dropped call, as a subscriber when a phone call is terminated unexpectedly it is dropped call. In the network if a call is terminated unexpectedly but not seen as abnormal then it is is not a dropped call. Ever wonder why when you complained of a bad quality the mobile network operator seem not to care?

At the end of March there is a CEM event in Dubai organized by IQPC, one of the topics being discussed is  "how can a service provider use the experiences of their subscriber to reduce operational cost."  Now this makes most sense since mobile operators are actually having a benefit in knowing what you experienced as a subscriber instead of simply storing it. It should be very interesting to listen to experts on what they think.

Trends in Customer Experience Management, Asian Style.

I must say that the CEM Summit in London in January was a very good event. One take away I had was that CEM programs are very important to service providers yet the main difficulty is how to equip customer care agents with the right information to ensure customer happiness. During the show I shared a few experiences we see in Asia

• Self-care is IN.  Even though most operators have customer hotlines, in some places of the world this is being replaced by simple access from the device while providing all relevant information for a customer care agent to ensure issues are addressed right the first time with the shortest possible waiting time

• Skype-alike feedback. When customers experience bad quality of service they are happy to send an easy way to feedback to the service provider, similar to what Skype does

• Consumer research without human intervention. Instead of making millions of survey calls, surveys are generated directly from devices

• Crowd source service quality benchmarking. What other best way to gather service quality information of your competition of not directly from their susbcribers experiences

• Experiences are highly individualize. Each subscriber and their circumstances are unique, it must be addressed as such

• 90% of customer experience are directly affected by the device and not network services

• Disable apps that eats a lot of data. Service providers either can not bill for unwanted app usage of data or customers are unhappily paying for the access

I am speaking on the CEM Summit in Dubai in March and will also share how much gain a service provider have in following the Asian trends…

Overheating Laptop

I would think this is a useless post but hopefully will remind me in the future of the weird things I have done…. While trying to work and at the same time some other things in mind.

Have you ever had your laptop overheat inside a bag? Did it still work? Apparently I had done so a lot more than other people I can think of. The last time was on the flight to London where I actually thought the laptop was turned off but apparently windows decided to restart itself after I uninstalled some Microsoft program I installed the night before. I noticed it on the plane when I decided to work a little and retried my bag which was red hot. I could hardly grab the laptop since it was almost boiling hot and when I opened it saw it was on and with only 30% remaining on the battery which usually last 6 hours. I guess the past hour it was on and overheating it must have the fans working like crazy trying to cool it.

A nice feature would be a laptop that shuts itself down when it goes too hot inside a bag. Does anyone know of such?