I ordered my iPhone 6+ through the Apple™ Store just over a week before Christmas and was truly amazed at how convenient and intuitive the entire process was, especially considering how busy the season is. From ordering to delivery, it took just over 5 days to receive the phone by courier, and I was kept informed of delivery milestones via email and SMS. I was truly thrilled considering at the time of ordering, the system informed me that it could take up to 3 weeks to arrive! Although I am used to purchasing songs and apps through iTunes™, my positive perception of Apple™ elevated many times-fold at the moment when I saw the courier service at my front gate. This escalated even more at the ease of activation and overall experience of using the device.
In the age of “The Experience Economy,” a term I first heard watching an enlightening TED presentation by Joseph Pine, instant gratification is almost a prerequisite for successful companies like Apple™ to meet their brand promises to their customers. Apple’s brand authenticity delights us end users every time by being authentic, delivering on the brand promise, and being what Pine calls “Real Real”. Here is another video with Pine:
That gets me thinking about what a man I’ll call Mr. X, a CEO of a leading mobile network operator in Malaysia, asked us at Ericsson four years ago, “What would your products and services be like if you were from Apple?” We naturally responded that designing and delivering the best performing networks and user experience was what Ericsson was known and reputed for.
Today’s discerning consumers expect instant gratification for the services they seek. Fulfilling their expectations is becoming even more challenging as top brands continually raise their game. For telecom service providers, this has become an ever-bigger challenge as the utilization of mobile broadband soars with the proliferation of cheaper devices amid intense competition for subscribers. Ericsson ConsumerLab found a few years ago that only 51% of respondents were satisfied with their service providers. Even today, balancing customer experience management with the burden of excess capacity in service ability has yet to be addressed by many service providers. I believe here are some of the reasons why.
The business case for customer experience management (CEM) – I have encountered quite a number of executives at service providers that struggle to justify investments in CEM. This is compounded by the lack of correlation between network and service KPIs that they measure against the customer satisfaction of Net Promoter Scores (NPS).
Sub-optimal design and automation of operational systems – very few service providers have optimally invested in Operation Support Systems (OSS) and real-time analytics to be truly predictive, proactive and pre-emptive to deliver superior customer experience. Those service providers that have done this are reaping the rewards of market leadership or are about to.
Difficulties in congestion management – Although I have observed some service providers attempt to implement traffic-shaping incentives, this has little impact on the usage behavior of the end users, especially during peak periods of the day. Most service providers attempt to manage service quality using their policy control features. Unfortunately, when a site is already congested, this hardly makes any difference.
Recently, the service provider in Malaysia I mentioned earlier was hit with a higher-than-usual flurry of complaints over social media. This was shortly after they tried to showcase the improvement they have made on their network with a rather clever advertising campaign. Also, as was to be expected, a leading industry blogger shared speed test results contradicting their claims. Examples of other complaints include a customer reporting a two-week service outage with no resolution, billing inaccuracies and threats to port to the competition for poor value for money.
As a customer of that very same service provider, I have very little to complain about, and I find that the service degradation I experience during peak hours is quite normal. However, I do share the opinion with many that service providers need to be more cautious about making claims that they are better. Even if they are accurate, it may not be perceived as true, as some will critically judge you based on your last poor performance.
Regardless, with Apple, I now have a benchmark of what a great authentic experience is like. And I hope that the other service providers in my life can elevate their game based on that or even exceed it. Just like what Mr. X asked for.
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