A report on the last Solidiance Breakfast Seminar Indonesia’s Telecommunication sector: Customer Experience Management

Background

As part of an extended series of industry breakfast events hosted by Solidiance across Asia, Solidiance Indonesia hosted its breakfast roundtable on the 26th of November 2015 to discuss Customer Experience Management (CEM) in Indonesia’s telecommunication sector. With the common issue of declining performance parameters in telecom operators, burgeoning acknowledgement of Customer Experience Management (CEM) is ever present to arrest the decline. Numerous regional telecom operators (Axiata, Globe Telecom, Telstra, etc.) have seen a downtrend reversal as a credit to customer-centric approach. What remains a key challenge for telecom players is the consistency to deliver customer experience and the implementation to improve their CEM, whether it’s introducing new tools or new strategies, without sacrificing further cost for the company.

Key Takeaways

1. Prevailing issues that exist in CEM in Indonesia’s Telecom sector

With millions of subscribers, dozens of ever-changing products and plans, as well as diversified sales and service channels, telecom providers are one amongst the sectors which require CEM platform more than any other. Issues along the journey of customer experience e.g. shorter customer lifecycle and skill gap which hinders the digital disruption to positively impact the customer satisfaction, are a couple of reasons why CEM is growing its importance. Tough competition within the market is pushing customers to have prevalence towards faster discontinuation of services, especially when dissatisfaction occurs. There is also often unsupportive system along the distribution chain, for example an ineffective T-cash implementation caused by the lack of proper training and understanding about the system. However, current CEM practices in most of today’s telecom falls under the feedback programs or customer relations of which division operate only within silos, and do not capture the overall customer experience. There is also an additional cost taken into consideration when the industry talks about CEM – as sometimes a third party involvement is needed to execute a thorough assessment and management system.

2. Break the silos: positioning CEM within the organisational structure

CEM is long subjected as a detachment from other divisions and henceforth is siloed. Other divisions, on the other hand, lack the sense of responsibility to ensure customer satisfaction. Each and specific job role tends to focus only on its own KPIs, as opposed to the company’s main objectives (which is providing good services to the customers). Increasingly in the global practice, however, CEM is positioned directly under the CEO’s reporting line. So what needs to be done to address this is to have much clearer KPIs (to be included in every different division with necessary adjustments according to roles) for customer experience, have a holistic KPI implementation across all divisions, have standardised procedures, and encourage all staff to be brand ambassadors. On top of it, a top-down approach is required to ensure effectiveness of the CEM practices across all divisions – or in some cases, PMO may serve as an alternate option as well.

3. Current CEM trends in Indonesia’s Telecom

CEM is shifting towards becoming a human-centered design which allows for in-depth interview with a few of the industry’s prime customers to better understand their expectation, needs, and pain points. A ‘wow factor!’, however, also remains a key point to attract & maintain customer loyalty. Companies will need to see the bigger picture; they must understand that purchasing preference does not only depend on the product/service it is offering, but also on the journey and experience around it as well – hence a holistic view of it and detailed CEM are required. Moreover, companies may outsource a third party extension to operate its CEM (sometimes PMO). Although it may be costly, it is a long-term investment with revenue coming later down the line.

4. Shifting towards a better CEM in Indonesia’s telecom industry

CEM practice in Indonesia accounts for only 20% in success rate. What is needed to address this is a supporting ecosystem which can accommodate CEM. The company must therefore thoroughly assess every touch point of their customer journey while ensuring it remains aligned with the company’s main objective. A few key points are :

• There should be a detailed breakdown from the very beginning of each experience towards the end of a customer’s journey
• SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) and audit are necessary for service quality assurance and continuous improvement.
• If we see from this perspective, CEM is really not a new thing - it is just a repackaging method of services
• A strategic focus on “prime” customers to ensure more significant results and valuable benefits for the company
• As customer lifecycle gets shorter and shorter, CEM has got to be a lot quicker as well with better customer behaviour predictions

5. Social media disruption urges the need of CEM

Increasing usage of social media in Indonesian marketplace may disrupt how companies deal with customer relations. The proliferation of social media channels emphasizes the fact that it is a multiplatform feedback entity which allows rapid information, including complaints, to spread quicker. Social media creates a massive impact to companies which mainly still have a hard time tracking down complaints. A suggested way to solve the problem is to have a quick & proper response in addressing inquiries/complaints. To anticipate such further distress, companies may also move towards a better customer behaviour anticipation to enable auto-responses for higher efficiency

Solidiance Breakfast Seminars are "by invitation only". If you would like to attend a future session, please contact us at [email protected]