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.

Customer Experience in Telecoms

Being in China last week give me glimpse how fast Customer Experience programs are being rolled-out in the country. This I can lay claim to while observing one of our customer deployments  (server failed, alarms everywhere, engineers panicked, solved with only 3 minutes downtime) where a single Customer IQ server receives more than 800,000 files per day and growing, this means that the update can be as much as 800,000 devices in that day or it can also be 800,000 customer complains to the operator in a single day… Hopefully for that customer, the largest operator in the world, its the former and not the later… On my way back to Nordics I can't help but think about what we in the western world term as big data, how much we stress about meeting big data requirements…. Comparing to China perhaps experiences from 800,000 mobile devices in a day is not yet considered as big data when they have 800,000,000 subscribers…. Seems like our deployment has room to grow still before we can join the Billion subscriber club….

I have been asked a few times to speak on a conference or to blog about an event and while searching for meaningful conference to attend to I stumbled upon CEM in Telecoms Middle East Summit. And after discussions with IQPC's Radhika Sasidharan I agreed to be part of the event. One things that entice me to be part of it are the line up of speakers and the topics being discussed. I attended the event as speaker last year and at the same time as one of the sponsors.. Back then Telecom operators were trying to learn from other verticals such as airports, banks and hotels… A Year later its now very focused in to the Telecoms market. So the trend in the Middle East is similar to Asia where the  subscribers base of our  customers using the Customer IQ solution have exceeded more than a Billion considering the size of the operators we work with.

The CEM in Telecoms MEA will be in Dubai, the melting pot of culture and businesses at the end of March. I am very much looking forward to be there to see the progress that du have achieved with Osman Sultan (CEO, du) talking about how customer centricity starts at the top. Graham Webster of Telefonica will also be sharing how Telfonica O2 managed to engage their subscribers emotionally while Gurul Kurt will be presenting a case study in TeliaSonera about delivering on customer promises. Its going to be an exciting spring in Dubai…. And like last year perhaps I can catch some snow and skiing on the way back to the Nordics after the warm spring in Dubai….

Speaking of the Nordics, I won't make my flight to Norway today so enjoy the snow in Sweden and   contemplate on how customer experiences can be improved in one Nordic operator. Let's see.. how should I do that?

Is there a good customer experience in parking spaces?

Someone I know was in Oslo recently and got a parking ticket that says paid ticket was not visible from windscreen.... see photo below..

the irony is that the paid parking ticket is very visible on the windscreen...  The city of Oslo had recently embarked on an improvement program for their parking ticket machines allowing customers to pay with their mobile phones, giving better customer experiences. However I think they forgot to train their staff to deliver better customer experiences as well or they have hired blind parking inspectors :-)

The best experience I ever had on a parking space is in Dubai at the Mall of the Emirates, where they even wash your car when you park.. both car wash and parking are free... now that's a good customer experience...

Should other parking areas adopt this?

Will Customers Ignore Bad Customer Service?

In competitive industries a bad customer experience results to churn (telecoms, media, etc). How about in hotels? Hotels are supposed to deliver the best customer experiences considering that Four Seasons set a trend several years back… This week I have very interesting customer experiences, of which a lesson can be learned. In a very large city I stayed at Le Meridien, the experience with the hotel staff and facilities were very pleasant and the price fits the companies travel budget. That set my expectation in the days there after. I arrived in Dubai with a similar expectation, booked a room at Emirates Grand Hotel (which is twice as much as I paid in Le Meridien) and was very disappointed. First off I was told I was told to pay the entire amount of my stay in advance and asked for my passport very rudely… the front desk personnel looked at customers with dubious suspicion, its the first time in many months that I have encountered such a sour and unfriendly staff in the front desk. Considering that the front desk staff is Filipino (who are known for excellent service and hospitality) I am very disappointed. The since I have to wait for the room to be ready before I can dress up for an early meeting (which I missed) I was hoping that the front desk staff will offer for me to wait somewhere convenient…. However after charging my credit card (the amount that I could have stayed at Four Seasons) I was ignored completely.. To my dismay I have to find someone else in the hotel to ask where their restaurant is and at least sit there and wait painstakingly…. Indeed a very painful experience… Anyway this first impression means I will not be a returning customer to the Emirates Grand Hotel….

I did have bad experiences in better hotels like Hilton (room not ready on time, worm in fruits). However in both cases the hotel staff apologizes and offered to compensate me for my troubles (free stay, free food, etc)… I continued to stay in Hilton considering that the bad experienced are offset with the apologies and friendliness of the staff… Something that I sadly never saw in Emirates Grand Hotel.

The question is in Telecoms, how many bad experiences does subscribers tolerate before they churn and move to another operator? In some countries subscriber churn immediately, especially young pre-paid users….

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…