Will Telco CEM Be Different from Other Industries?

All companies, not only telecom ones, need to stay focused on keeping up with the new trends and securing their customer loyalty.

How do you see near future in the telco CEM? Will it be different from other industries?

What consumers expect w.r.t. customer experience is highly influenced by their past and present experience buying and engaging with companies in general. Digitalisation and easy access to information has blurred the lines between industries over the last 10-15 years. Therefore, as a telco company we constantly need to stay focused on new standards of experience, pushing the bar – not only from other telcos but from completely different industries. As a fact, the competitive landscape is changing – indirect competitors become direct competitors and the degrees of competition become wider.
The time has come where the current loyalty programmes seem to have outplayed their role w.r.t. value creation. Companies need to identify new models to build engagement and secure customer loyalty. In various industries subscription models are the new kid on the block – from a customer perspective securing convenience; reducing search cost and less cognitive saturation and from a business perspective generating a steady and secure income stream. Appearing to be the best response.
That is an advantage for telcos! Subscription is a business model already practised by most telcos and standard to customers. But the advantage also comes at a risk.
Most telcos are product or service-focused and not experience focused – the current subscription model appears because the delivery of our products makes it easy and not because it makes sense from a consumer perspective. Having new entrees building and reforming the standard of subscription models, in industries like FMCG, raises the standard expectations of telcos – expectations most are not ready to cope with, yet.
Therefore, on top of my CX agenda is a shift from product & services orientation to experience & transformation orientation. We simply do not only need to produce the best products and applying the newest technology to satisfy customer expectations, we also need to make sense with technology to make time well spent instead of saved.

Where do you see the difference on the market when it comes to customers? What are the biggest challenges the telecom industry needs to deal with right now?

As an industry we need to cater for and stay humble towards understanding human needs. Human needs are not volatile, nor are they static. Customer needs are highly influenced by the context we as humans appear in. We, as humans, have spent the last decade telling ourselves that time is money and that non-hassle-free experiences are inefficient. The convenience agenda is still extremely embedded in most people’s lives and businesses. Yet, on the flipside of hyper convenience, speed and optimisation is a less positive side-effect. As online becomes lifeline cognitive saturation also increases. To some, even addiction and escape from physical life arise. Without putting words on it, most consumers are digitally exhausted or even hungover. New words like JOMO arise and as companies we need to take the joy of missing out seriously and start taking responsibility for the context we produce.

What technology do you consider having the biggest impact on the telco industry in the near future?

A large amount of “rather new” and exponential technologies have just or are on the tipping point of becoming scalable, i.e. IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, digital twin and quantum computing.
I see a solid CX potential in most of these technologies. If applied correctly. New technology does not in itself bring any value to CX, they need to be designed and applied in the right context and structure – it needs to create an orchestrated experience which covers a human need. Else it is just technology for the sake of technology.
Personally, I see a large potential in example digital twins. Most large telcos have a rather complex system architecture which from time to time makes it difficult to deliver an orchestrated customer experience – especially if something goes wrong and the data does not pass through the systems as expected. By applying digital twins, it is possible to capture and correct individual personal journeys much easier.
Yet again context is everything and without proper preparation and behavioural design of each individual customer journey it is not possible to unlock the full value of digital twins.

Sanne Hildegard BANGGAARD, Senior Director, Head of Customer Experience & Journey Management at YouSee is a CX evangelist. Sanne is a true believer in the positive impact of CX to people, business’ and society as such. In Yousee (Nuuday) her mandate is to break down silos and design & improve ideal customer journeys based on a clear understanding of human behaviour, needs and preferences.
She leads several teams of researchers, strategists and subject matter experts within the CX craftsmanship. Her teams work in close corporation with other crafts, to transform YouSee from a traditional product-oriented telco into a tech company that makes data-driven decision based on extensive understanding and design according to human behaviour and needs.
Sanne joined YouSee and the telco industry two years ago. With her curious, visionary, hard-working and persistent approach she has defined the theory, craftsmanship and adoption strategy for YouSee approach to experience – and customer journey design.
Prior to joining YouSee and telco, Sanne has had long CX experience in the financial sector.