Towards Tomorrows Oct 2016 | Page 4

HOW ANALYTICS BOOSTS A COMPANY’S CXM INITIATIVES AMIT SANYAL There’s no escaping it-customer experience management (CXM) is what makes or breaks a brand. This is especially true today, since telecom operators live in precarious times, with falling average revenue per user and wafer-thin profit margins. To top it all, customers are just itching to jump ship at the first sight of trouble-i.e.-bad customer service. Let’s look at a few analyst statistics in this regard: By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator - WALKER 68 per cent of customers say that they’ve switched service providers owing to poor customer experience - ACCENTURE 95 per cent of dissatisfied customers tell others about their bad experience - ZENDESK Customers who experience a positive social customer care experiences are nearly three times more likely to recommend a brand - HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW In other words, operators, please sit up and take notice! A sound CXM roadmap is the secret ingredient that gives your business extra bite. And here are a few more statistics to prove it: • According to American Express, one happy customer can equal as many as nine referrals for your business. • Maximizing satisfaction with customer journeys has the potential not only to increase customer satisfaction by 20 per cent but also to lift revenue by up to 15 per cent while lowering the cost of serving customers by as much as 20 per cent -McKinsey • Customer experience leaders have more than a 16 per cent advantage over competitors in willingness to buy, reluctance to switch brands, and likelihood to recommend –Temkin Group Now the tricky bit-where do operators start? Well, it’s a two-fold step, really, that begins with proactively tracking down what customers (actually) want. This, in turn, will (hopefully) throw up actionable insights into the challenges related to ensuring customer satisfaction. Chalking out a CXM strategy is merely the most obvious result of the above plan. So, what makes a customer tick? While there is no single appropriate response to this question, I would 02