Tag Archives: Customer Experience

Feb 22 2018
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Telecoms Future, The Great Telco Debate

A ‘brand’ view of the telecoms industry

Tim Pritchard, Kantar TNS at the Great Telco Debate

In the spirit of getting outside perspectives on the evolving telecoms market, Tim Pritchard from Kantar TNS, the WPP company which is the largest custom research business in the world, joined the Great Telco Debate on the role of telecoms in the digital economy. The brand perspective raised some very interesting and contradicting themes:

GTD17_027

  • The customer is changing. Traditional segmentation is no longer valid. ‘Generation CX’ (young, old, educated, working class – a slice of everyone) is the new reality and brands either listen and respond to customer feedback or risk becoming irrelevant.
  • It is widely accepted that customer loyalty drives profitable revenue growth. As such, customer experience (CX) is non-negotiable. But how does it fit in with today’s telecoms ‘product’ given the world of apps and over-the-top content consumption?
  • Corporate mission statements and brand values tend not to include the customer – you’ll be amazed how few companies, even those spending tens of millions each year on CX, have an agreed customer strategy. Get it written down and socialised across the business so that everyone from the janitor to the CEO knows it, and uses it to frame their work, their thinking, and their daily behaviour.
  • WPP’s 2017 Global BrandZ  shows that 8 of the world’s most valuable 50 brands are telcos. A further 15 are technology companies. You’ve had the power for a long time, but have you leveraged that power? I would say not.
  • Most Telcos have adopted NPS (Net Promoter System) yet their NPS scores are among the lowest of any industry. Virtual network providers often enter markets and quickly start to outperform the network owners, sometimes by as much as 20-30 NPS points. It shouldn’t be that easy – there is something clearly amiss among incumbent telcos to afford disruptor brands that opportunity to create true CX differentiation.
  • A focus on self-serve business models may help to save telcos money but, aside from the customer groups who actively prefer to self-serve, tend to harm rather than enhance brand building efforts.
  • The customer voice is vital, and capturing customer feedback on specific interactions (preferably in real-time) provides critical input for both tactical response and strategy development, as well as brand building

There are 3 basic rules:

  • Don’t let customer down, especially at critical times (i.e. the moments that really matter)
  • Deliver emotional and functional experiences that stimulate long-lasting feelings for the brand
  • Do things that reinforce brand choice and deliver services to customers in a personal, relevant, and needs-satisfying manner

In short, the role of brand is changing with the digital market. Telcos and tech companies benefit hugely from high brand valuations yet typically suffer from poor customer service, reflected in low NPS scores. Part of the challenge is identifying what role the telco plays in the lives of ‘Generation CX’. Identifying, enunciating and promoting a clear customer strategy is vital to re-positioning the telco for the coming generations.

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Nov 10 2015
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Accessibility, Technology for the Visually Impaired, Telecoms Future

The Six Million Dollar man 40 years on. Wearables, Smartphones, 3D printing. Cost to you <$100k!

As a teenager in the 1970s I loved Steve Austin, the astronaut who crashed and was rebuilt. Remember the tag line “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology, the capability to make the world’s first Bionic man”! It captured my imagination and has come to the front of my thinking now as I consider the possibilities of using technology to compensate for the different disabilities affecting people today. Perhaps we can’t replicate the eagle-eye zoom or the leopard-like speed of Lee Major’s character, but we can certainly bring functional replacement or complementary devices and applications to bring the astronaut-specific re-build of the 70s down to a very affordable level today.

The price of electronic components is continually falling, fueling the consumer electronics boom. Smartphones, and their associated explosion of applications, leverage the mobile network and the cloud computing phenomenon to deliver a wealth of apps both mainstream and specific to certain conditions, often free or at a minimal charge. On top of this comes the wearables revolution: watches, bracelets, eyeware, hearing devices, patches and exoskeleton limbs. 3D printing also means that the manufacturing of specialist devices is literally at the push of a button and can be taken to the most remote part of the world, delivering prosthetics to Africa at an affordable price point.

So how does the $6 million (not even allowing for inflation) look today? What gadgets, software and services could we pluck from consumer electronics retail outlets, apps stores and the medical community to build our modern-day bionic person?

  • Smartphone – $500
  • Exoskeleton bionic hand – $20,000
  • Exoskeleton legs with muscle stimulated control – $30,000
  • Sight (glasses) – $2,500
  • Hearing – $2,500
  • Bracelet with haptic feedback – $500
  • Smart watch – $500
  • Skin patches- $50

Total = <$100,000

There are, of course, some very expensive options such as retinal implants which still cost $100,000s plus complex surgery. However, most of the shopping list is literally off-the-shelf, or even off-the-printer.

The individual will need a subscription to a mobile provider, and probably also a link to their home WiFi, to enjoy the luxury of controlling the various household devices and services in the smarter-home environment; and, outside of the home, to link with the smart village, town and city services that can also complement the items in terms of navigation, linking into public services as well as the broader business community.

The e-health perspective also needs to be built into the thinking. Some of the devices will link into social and e-health services. Some of the information loops could potentially be to doctors and carers without the individual even needing to be involved. In effect, multiple information loops will feed off and to the individual, whilst improved monitoring and reduced cost of maintaining contact will help fund installations where required.

Steve Austin was funded by the US government in the TV show. In the case of a person being disabled through an accident, insurance would doubtless be involved, as would the medical authorities. Most of the items here are off-the-shelf and affordable for a vast swathe of society, not just limited to astronauts!

The world’s billion disabled people (source WHO) will have an increasing chance of joining in the digital revolution at home, at work and in society as a whole if we all help bring it to their attention. We also need to educate other relevant parties – family and friends, doctors and governments to name a few.

In the year that we all went Back to the Future, it just goes to show that time spent watching TV as a teenager wasn’t wasted. In Thunderbirds and Joe 90, Gerry Anderson predicted video mobile phones, Telepresence and brainwave transplants, and don’t forget the crew of the Starship Enterprise had mobile devices. If you want to predict the future, keep an eye on the TV!
six million dollar man

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Nov 18 2013
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Telecoms Future

Managing the egos in the digital eco system

Straddling different industries as an analyst raises some fascinating anomalies. Telecoms, Networking, IT & Media are, like the US and the UK, often divided by a common language. Some interpretation is often required when talking about managed services, multi-channel, multi-screen, let alone Customer Experience.  And, each industry believes it holds the upper hand when it comes to the convergence of activities.

Listening to recent presentations from different quarters, I am also reminded that the emerging series of ‘eco systems’ also raises the issue of the heavy weights coming into the converged digital world along with their associated ‘size 9 egos’. Coming from a telecoms background, I am only too familiar with the accusations thrown at the telcos of being arrogant about adjacent markets. Cloud is the perfect example: the telecoms and networking industry keep telling us that cloud is nothing without the network. Well, to take a leaf from the politicians’ book, a little humility is required. Cloud is nothing without the virtualisation contributions of storage and processing,  let alone the ability of applications and content to render easily across the different networks, data centres and devices.  Arguably, the network is increasingly nothing without the wealth of apps, devices, sensors and computing power sitting in data centres around the globe. Hence, other industries, and indeed many within the telecoms industry, see the networking piece as the necessary evil that links the world together.

New egos are, of course, emerging with the breakdown of traditional markets. The OTT players are the obvious ones with their global reach and advertising, retail or disruptive business models. At the same time, other players from IT and broadcasting are also adjusting their positions to leverage the digital economy. Even traditional network equipment players are shifting focus and building network operation centres , orchestration tools and services  which will potentially bring them into conflict with the emerging telco position.

When analysing any aspect of the emerging digital world it is, to quote To Kill a Mocking Bird, necessary “to stand in the shoes” of the other party before being too judgemental. It means that not everyone can bring their ego to every situation.  From a telecoms perspective, this raises the issue of ‘wholesale’ and a new approach to channels. Priming every service to the customer in a consumer or business environment is not realistic. The customer will increasingly choose their preferred channel: larger MNCs will work with their preferred integrator (sometimes telcos), SMEs will often choose their favourite local, similarly sized, industry oriented partner and consumers will often lead with the core provider of their core entertainment element. This is not to say that telcos don’t have a major role behind the scenes. The linking of all of the supporting services, analysis of  activities, hosting of services in public and private clouds and overall management and orchestration of all of these moving parts, all represent  valuable contributions to emerging business models.

If a company is to be truly customer centric, then it must be prepared to bury its ego in its Go To Market strategy and work with partners to build the end user experience.

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