Customer Experience Management in Telecoms: Benefits, Costs & Statistics

Customer experience (CX) is undoubtedly a very important factor in business success. It is a general concept that takes into account every brand touchpoint. Put another way, it is the totality of a customer’s experience with a company. Moreover, this relationship doesn’t just end with purchases. This is why companies invest in customer experience management software solutions. In this regard, telecom companies certainly do as they should.

In this article, we are going to survey the state of customer experience management in telecoms. We will look into current popular frameworks, benchmarks, best practices, and future outlooks. We also provide you with a guide on what top customer experience management solutions are and how they help telecom companies. With this, hopefully, you will have a better idea of how CX is in the industry today.

Among product categories, appliances and technology have the largest number of customers (66%) who expect better service when shopping. As part of this group, telecoms are held to a higher standard than most. This is why top companies such as AT&T and Verizon invest heavily in customer experience management software solutions.

But despite having the best platforms around, big telecom players somehow manage to botch service and customer engagement opportunities. In fact, internet service providers have the worst net promoter score (NPS) of -3. This is due to a wide variety of causes.

Current challenges to CX range from having data silos to “simpler” issues like the prioritization of customer pain points. Fortunately, the best CX management platforms provide just the right features that help companies deal with such issues. But before going through them, let’s take a look first at the state of CX in telecoms.

What is customer experience in telecoms?

Customer experience in telecoms is always undergoing changes. New needs emerge, hence new benchmarks and best practices arise. A good picture would be an arms race between companies and customer preferences. However, according to recent customer service statistics, the power sits firmly on one side—the customers. Just one bad experience can cause 73% of customers to switch to a competitor. It can be a single experience of a product (e.g. buggy interface or bad signal) or one instance of service (e.g. a botched connection or mobile phone repair).

Moreover, CX isn’t just limited to product/service experiences per se. It also encompasses customer satisfaction and engagement. Additionally, these are not just confined to face-to-face experience but also involve the whole range of digital channels—from social media to email. You can even say that it is a proactive, rather than a reactive, activity. Thus, managing CX can be very complex. And, this is more so in the telecom industry as offerings are not only more complex than most industries but what telecoms offer is something very dear to us.

Telecom technologies are woven into the fabric of our daily social lives. These include work, school, and recreational activities (e.g. gaming). Thus, it is easily imaginable why telecoms are held to a higher standard. When they provide a bad customer experience, they disrupt our personal lives. They take away things that we take for granted. So, telecom companies use the best CX platforms available to improve experiences, engagement, and satisfaction. Furthermore, they adopt their very own CXM framework.

Typically, this involves, more or less, what they call The Six Pillars of Experience.

The Six Pillars of Experience

1. Integrity. Build trust by acting in customers’ best interests.
2. Empathy. Demonstrate care and show the right levels of emotional intelligence.
3. Resolution. Adapt a problem-solving mindset to remove customer pain points.
4. Personalization. Focus on meeting individual expressed or unexpressed needs. Make customers feel valued.
5. Expectations. Stop treating customers as captive contract holders. Reset expectations by building relationships across the lifecycle.
6. Time and Effort. Bring ease of access to customer journeys. Make processes as frictionless as possible.

The General CXM Framework

One good definition of customer experience management (CXM) frames it not only as a system of marketing strategies that focus on customer experience, satisfaction, and engagement, but also maintain that relevant technologies are part and parcel of the practice. CXM really covers the full customer lifecycle. So, the CXM framework encompasses seemingly disparate business functions that influence customer experience. These include logistics, manufacturing, and even product/service design.

As such, it has depth and covers more ground than CRM. It is not limited to pre-sales and after-sales support but it is proactive in improving operational performance based on the real-time flow of data to improve the customer experience and minimize customer churn. Hence, it relies on powerful business intelligence techniques and analytics tools to make businesses sensitive to once-undetected variables that could affect success. It doesn’t only seek to optimize insights generation from known data but it also seeks to improve insights on relationships between such data. In short, it destroys silos and builds a real-time vantage point for everything customer related.

What the CXM mindset really does is put the customer at the very center of the business. And, it focuses on creating win-win scenarios to improve customer engagement to increase profitability. This sustained marketing strategy, however, is easier explained than executed. And, this is very evident in the picture formed by recent customer experience facts and figures.

Customer Experience in Telecoms Statistics

Success in the telecom industry is very sensitive to the quality of customer experience. This, of course, is generally true in most industries. But, as mentioned, the telecom industry is held to higher standards mainly for the reasons discussed above. As such, this leads to less-than-stellar performance. And, even telecom executives rate their performance quite low even when 92% of them treat customer experience as a top strategic objective. Customers agree with about 39% of them rated the industry when it comes to customer experience. Banking came in far second with 22% of the votes.

Retention Rates: Painting a Fuzzy Picture

However, some would say that this doesn’t show a complete picture. This is especially when the industry scores quite high in one KPI. The telecom industry is among the industries with the highest retention rates—with 78%, which is 3 percentage points above the average. However, this doesn’t really tell us about the general quality of customer experience. This is because we can attribute a good part of this to having long-term contracts. And, this is something that the telecom industry shares with others ranked at the top. These include media (84%), professional services, (84%), insurance (83%), and IT (81%). If you look at industries with faster-moving products/services, retention rates are lower than the average of 75%. Consider retail (63%) and hospitality, travel, and restaurants (55%).

Churn Rates: Earth to Telecom Industry

As such, the telecom industry’s retention rate is not really a good indicator of good customer experience. In fact, when you look at customer churn rates, it also ranks fifth! The telecom industry has a churn rate of 21% following cable (25%), financial/credit (25%), general retail (24%), and online retail (22%). Its churn rate is just a tad lower than fast-moving retail goods. And, this is quite high, especially considering contracts and lock-in periods. One study even estimated that individual telecom businesses lose up to $65 million because of churn.

Here are other relevant churn rate facts and statistics in the telecom industry.

• Monthly voluntary churn is around 1.9% to 2.1%.
• Annual churn rates average between 10% to 67%.
• Around 75% of the 17 to 20 million subscribers signing up for a new wireless company every year come from another provider.
• While product and price are important factors, people leave providers mainly because they are dissatisfied with how they are treated.
• When it comes to Net Promoter Scores (NPS), telecom companies typically score 31.

The Customer Service Front: One of the Most Hated Industries

On the customer service front, the telecom industry is not really at the bleeding edge. In fact, it seems to be a laggard. In one study, the industry was ranked among the most hated industries when it comes to customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores.

1. Public Administration/ Government: 63.8
2. Health Care and Social Assistance: 71.7
3. Energy Utilities: 72.0
4. Telecommunications and Information: 72.2
5. Transportation: 74.9

This could be partly caused by the lack of useful customer data and poor customer insights. In other words, it can be a CX analytics issue. And, this seems to be the case because even among the 93% of CX leaders that rely on customer satisfaction scores and other survey-based feedback, 85% aren’t happy about their CX measurement. Poor analytics could be a big factor in why only 9% of client-facing companies report that they deliver consistent CX at every business touchpoint.

What Customer Experience Management Software Does for Telecoms

Firstly, customer experience management software makes telecom businesses sensitive to customer preferences. This is to put customers at the center of the business. Secondly, CX software enables them to act on such preferences to drive profitability. Thirdly, it also provides the necessary tools to help improve customer satisfaction and engagement. As such, for customer experience management in telecoms, a whole suite of integrated tools is needed to cover the full range of the customer lifecycle.

In short, customer experience management software in telecom simply makes the implementation of the CX mindset, as discussed, possible. Also, it makes it efficient. This is because it provides users with automation tools to help them streamline their workflows. It also has collaboration features for tasks and team management.

Of course, even though software technology is a big part of CX, just having one doesn’t guarantee success. But, it is truly an essential ingredient. Without it, no respectable CX program can come by—especially in the telecom industry. And, having one provides users with a ton of benefits. The main one is that a majority of consumers, at 94%, are very likely to do business with a company that provides excellent CX.

Benefits of Customer Experience Management Software for Telecoms

CX software can bring many quantifiable benefits to customer experience management in telecoms. Here is a breakdown of the most general ones.

Interconnectivity and Visibility

Software products provide users with tools to quantify the causes, effects, and relationships of behaviors and events that affect customer experience. This is across organizational borders and covers functions from product design to logistics. But, of course, it relies heavily on customer feedback which acts as its basis. With this, companies can have a real-time 360-degree view useful for making agile tactical corrections or long-term strategies.

Enact a Single Source of Truth

CX platforms centralize everything for customers. Aside from data and analytics, these involve tasks and team management operations. The best ones also provide a knowledge base module for easy reference and knowledge building. With this, companies will be able to have a single source of truth for everything CX. Hence, action policies will align with this single source of truth.

Improve Omnichannel Engagement

Great CX solutions also have CRM software capabilities that don’t only allow them to provide critical support but also enable them to engage their customers across all channels. In this way, companies are not only visible but also easily discoverable and proactive with engagement. With this, users can gather data and feedback through interactions, surveys, and the like. Also, they will be able to mount interventions to improve experience and satisfaction through personalization.

Drive Profitability

Through engagement efforts, users will be able to provide personalized treatments to their customers. And, this creates and maintains good relationships and can help drive profitability. This is because personalization is a highly-preferred mode of transaction nowadays.

Reduce Customer Churn

As discussed, customer experience management in telecom has a big problem when it comes to customer churn. By having tools to get to know customers better and by providing them with personalized products/services and overall experience, retention can be improved. Brand loyalty can be increased. And, when done really well, brand evangelization quantifiable via Net Promoter Score (NPS) can be induced. Also, great CX can even stave off the negative effects of one bad experience. In fact, it was found that 77% of customers can overlook a bad experience if they had positive experiences mostly.

Features of Customer Experience Management Software for Telecoms

The benefits that telco customer experience management platforms afford heavily depend on their tools and features. And, as telecom companies want, more or less, there are common features that you can expect among, let’s say, generalist platforms.

Reporting and Analytics

These are, basically, business intelligence software solutions that allow users to gather and analyze data across a wide variety of sources. But, of course, you will find more customer-centric tools more often in CX platforms. These include surveys, landing pages, customer behavior tracking, and many more. Moreover, CX platforms also provide customizable analytics tools that users can use to generate actionable insights from their data pool.

A screenshot of quick-and-easy report dashboard on tickets.

Customer Management and Omnichannel Engagement

CX platforms usually come with a customer management module that combines contact management with engagement tools. With these, companies will be able to create and modify customer profiles, which they can use to engage customers across a wide variety of channels right from the central CX platform.

Tasks and Team Management

Usually, CX platforms have some project management software features that allow managers and team members to work together easily. These tools also allow companies to implement accountability measures, including performance-tracking capabilities. These can be specific to customer support operations or can be deployed for more admin-based endeavors.

Ticket Management and Surveys

Top CX platform tools usually come with help desk software features. These, essentially, are contact center features that allow users to engage customers in a support capacity. One important tool is the ticket management function that discretized issues and helps users route issues to the right representatives for fast and easy resolution. Moreover, you would also find tools that allow you to take CSAT scores after each support session.

A screenshot of the easy-to-use survey dashboard from Qualtrics CX.

Automation Tools

CX platforms usually embed smart automation tools in all their modules. These allow users to streamline workflows across different functions and modules. With these, users can turn their attention to more mission-critical tasks and hand over menial clerical tasks to highly-reliable programs and AI.

Machine Learning and AI

The best CX platforms are also powered by machine learning and AI. These enable them to analyze and learn from data and to automatically generate actionable insights for companies. Moreover, these tools are also essential to target personalization.

Knowledgebase and Customer Self-Service

Again, as CX suites usually include CRM and help desk software modules, they usually provide a customizable knowledge base solution. Companies can easily leverage this module to provide a single source of truth for employees in support roles. Furthermore, they can also create self-service resource centers for customers.

On Specialist CX Tools and the Value of an Integrated Platform

There are also specialist CX software tools that have advanced standalone functions. While they don’t have a wide range of CEM features, they provide more advanced capabilities such as more powerful automations. But, it is highly recommended that these should be treated as supplementary components of your software stack. Well, this is if you don’t have a main CX software.

And, if you don’t have one yet, it is best to look for a generalist one that allows for a collaborative cross-departmental approach to curating customer journeys. This is because, as data shows, companies that do so are more likely to succeed. In fact, during the pandemic, those that used this approach were 67% likely to see financial gains.

Cost of Customer Experience Management Software for Telecoms

Just like other business solutions, customer experience management software suites for telecoms are priced according to the different variables. These include:

• Type of deployment
• Number of features
• How advanced features are
• The number of users
• Setup fees
• The number of contacts and segments
• How advanced reporting and analytics features are
• The number of channels to be tracked
• Payment schemes

The top ones cost around $9 per agent/user per month to about $199 per month depending on the type of plan. Furthermore, there are also providers out there that allow users to create their custom deployments for custom pricing as.

Examples of Customer Experience Management Software for Telecoms

ZendeskVISIT WEBSITE

Zendesk is one of the best CX platforms available today. It offers companies a well-rounded CX suite, complete with CRM and support features to improve personalized engagement and profitability. Moreover, Zendesk provides users with tasks and team management tools to help users manage operations easily. Furthermore, it also provides CX intelligence solutions such as surveys and other feedback mechanisms to gather real-time customer data and gain real-time actionable insights.  It is also prized for its easy-to-use and automated ticket management module. It also has VoIP integrations perfect for voice customer support operations.

Alchemer

Alchemer is a standalone specialist CX analytics solution. It provides users with tools to gather and analyze feedback to generate actionable insights. With this, users will be able to better understand their customer base, identify issues, prioritize issues, and appropriately deal with them. Key features include SMS survey distribution, online survey, integrated video feedback questions, and kiosk survey, among others. With these, users will be able to put the customer right at the heart of the business.

Qualtrics

Qualtrics CX is a popular customer experience management tool used by telecoms. It offers users a great range of feedback-gathering and analysis tools. These include customizable surveys with more than 100 question types. Analysis tools include key driver analysis, statistical analysis, text analysis, predictive analytics, and machine learning. Moreover, it has an easy-to-use ticketing module that is intuitive for support teams. Also, it makes use of industry-standard metrics such as Customer Effort Score (CES), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT).

Verified Reviews

Verified Reviews is a feedback monitoring and reviews management solution. The platform provides CX leaders tools to gather customer sentiments found on reviews around the internet. It scours the web and lets users know of both negative and positive reviews that they can act on. In this way, companies can always improve their offerings and optimize the way they carry out business according to the needs of their customers. Moreover, it allows users to leverage positive reviews as testimonials on various different platforms.

NICE inContact CXoneVISIT WEBSITE

NICE inContact CXone is a leading contact center solution used for improving customer satisfaction and support efforts. It does not only provide companies with the ability to provide omnichannel support but it is also fitted with advanced customer intelligence tools. With these, telcos can have a 360-degree view of customer-related issues and have the agility to act on them in time. Moreover, it offers productivity and collaboration tools, complete with workforce analytics features to track performance.

Zendesk offers companies a well-rounded CX suite, complete with CRM and support features to improve personalized engagement and profitability.

How can telecoms leverage predictive analytics in CX?

Predictive analytics has become a game-changer in customer experience (CX) management, especially for telecom companies looking to anticipate customer needs and reduce churn. By using data-driven insights, telecom companies can be proactive rather than reactive, addressing issues before they impact customer satisfaction. Here’s how predictive analytics can enhance CX in telecoms:

• Identify At-Risk Customers Early
  Predictive analytics can flag customers likely to churn based on behavior patterns, service usage, and support history. By identifying these customers, telecom companies can intervene early with retention offers or personalized support to prevent them from leaving.
• Optimize Customer Service Efforts
  Predictive models help companies predict peak times for service requests, enabling them to allocate resources effectively. For instance, telecoms can better plan call center staffing during high-demand periods, leading to shorter wait times and a smoother customer service experience.
• Personalize Marketing Campaigns
  By analyzing customer data, predictive analytics enables telecoms to tailor marketing campaigns based on customer preferences and past interactions. This personalization can increase campaign effectiveness and improve customer satisfaction by delivering relevant content and offers.
• Enhance Network Reliability
  Predictive analytics helps detect patterns in network usage and identify potential points of failure before they affect customers. By addressing these issues proactively, telecom companies can improve service reliability and reduce disruptions, leading to a better overall customer experience.
• Increase Product Upsell and Cross-Sell Opportunities
  Predictive analytics can suggest upsell and cross-sell opportunities based on customer profiles and behavior. This enables telecoms to offer complementary services or upgrades that customers are more likely to find valuable, boosting both customer satisfaction and revenue.

Look for the Best Fit: Take Advantage of Free Trials

Looking for software that best fits your needs can be quite hard. This is because, oftentimes, it is not really the best one per se that can take your CX to the next level. What you’re looking for is the best one for you. Hence, because what’s best is relative to your particular needs, it is really recommended to test out several platforms. We suggest that the best way to do it is by subscribing to free trial versions of your target solutions. Furthermore, it is also worth considering testing these out with other team members, especially the ones that are your target users. In this way, you will be able to gather early feedback. And, later, you can turn them into digital transformation evangelists in your company. Doing it this way can help your company transition better, especially when target users can feel some sort of ownership.

Secondly, as mentioned, if you don’t yet have a base CX platform, then consider generalist software solutions first such as Zendesk. These provide you with end-to-end solutions, from customer intelligence to customer engagement. Moreover, platforms like Zendesk have team management solutions as well with advanced projects and tasks management features. Paired with a ticket management system, complete with automated routing tools, users will be able to build support teams. And, with VoIP integrations, you can even fold your call center software infrastructure into your greater CX platform. In this way, you’ll be able to build out and up with a true highly-operational central command center in the middle.

Key Insights

• Importance of CX in Telecoms: Customer experience (CX) is crucial for telecom companies as it influences customer satisfaction, engagement, and overall business success. Telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon heavily invest in CX management software to meet high customer expectations.
• Challenges in Telecom CX: Despite advanced CX platforms, telecom companies often struggle with service and engagement issues. For instance, internet service providers have a negative net promoter score (NPS) of -3 due to various factors, including data silos and prioritization of customer pain points.
• Six Pillars of Experience: Telecoms focus on six key pillars for customer experience management: Integrity, Empathy, Resolution, Personalization, Expectations, and Time and Effort.
• General CXM Framework: The CXM framework encompasses all aspects of customer interactions, from marketing strategies to product design, and relies heavily on business intelligence and analytics to improve customer experience.
• Retention and Churn Rates: Telecoms have high retention rates (78%) due to long-term contracts but also face significant churn rates (21%) due to poor customer service and satisfaction.
• Benefits of CX Management Software: CX software provides telecoms with tools for interconnectivity, visibility, omnichannel engagement, profitability, and reduced customer churn. It centralizes customer data and facilitates personalized engagement.
• Key Features of CX Software: Effective CX platforms include reporting and analytics, customer management, omnichannel engagement, task and team management, ticket management, automation tools, machine learning, AI, and knowledge bases.

FAQ

1. What is the best customer experience management software for telecoms in 2024? The best customer experience management software for telecoms in 2024 is Zendesk. It offers a comprehensive suite of tools for customer intelligence, team management, and proactive customer engagement.
2. Why is customer experience crucial for telecom companies? Customer experience is crucial for telecom companies because it significantly influences customer satisfaction, retention, and overall business success. Poor customer experience can lead to high churn rates and negative customer perceptions.
3. What are the main challenges in managing customer experience for telecom companies? The main challenges include data silos, prioritization of customer pain points, and maintaining consistent service quality. Telecoms also struggle with poor customer satisfaction scores and high churn rates despite having advanced CX platforms.
4. What are the Six Pillars of Experience in telecom CX management? The Six Pillars of Experience are Integrity, Empathy, Resolution, Personalization, Expectations, and Time and Effort. These pillars guide telecom companies in building trust, demonstrating care, solving problems, personalizing experiences, managing expectations, and making processes easy for customers.
5. How does customer experience management software benefit telecom companies? CX management software benefits telecom companies by providing tools for interconnectivity, real-time data visibility, omnichannel engagement, personalized customer interactions, profitability, and reduced customer churn. It helps centralize customer data and streamline operations.
6. What features should telecom companies look for in customer experience management software? Telecom companies should look for features such as reporting and analytics, customer management, omnichannel engagement, task and team management, ticket management, automation tools, machine learning, AI, and a knowledge base. These features ensure comprehensive and effective CX management.
7. How do retention and churn rates reflect customer experience in telecoms? Retention rates in telecoms are high (78%) due to long-term contracts, but churn rates (21%) are also significant due to poor customer service and dissatisfaction. High retention doesn’t necessarily indicate good customer experience, as many customers are locked into contracts.
8. Why is it important for telecom companies to focus on personalization in CX management? Personalization is important because it helps telecom companies meet individual customer needs, build strong customer relationships, and drive profitability. Personalized experiences can also mitigate the negative impact of occasional bad experiences and improve overall customer satisfaction.

By Nestor Gilbert

Nestor Gilbert is a senior B2B and SaaS analyst and a core contributor at FinancesOnline for over 5 years. With his experience in software development and extensive knowledge of SaaS management, he writes mostly about emerging B2B technologies and their impact on the current business landscape. However, he also provides in-depth reviews on a wide range of software solutions to help businesses find suitable options for them. Through his work, he aims to help companies develop a more tech-forward approach to their operations and overcome their SaaS-related challenges.