The race to the bottom has been well and truly run – ready for a race to the top?
Surely there must be more to differentiating yourself in a crowded market than just how much you charge?
In today’s omni-channel ‘work-from-anywhere’ world, communication has never been easier, or smarter.
So – given that the customer is always king – opportunities now abound for organisations of every size and vertical to swap price for service as their strategic priority.
And that means good news for end users and their Managed Service Providers looking for the latest way to stand out in the crowd.
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Chris Aylott[/caption]
“Good customer experience creates repeat business. When you exceed expectations and delight them, they become your marketeers – and who doesn’t want free marketing?” says Chris Aylott, Head of Product at leading UK telecoms billing and provisioning software provider Union Street, whose powerful solutions score big.
“This is particularly relevant in the telecoms sector as it has one of the highest customer churn rates which hasn’t been helped by organisations trying to win business via cheaper prices.
“They need to understand what the customer demands are and they need to adopt a customer-centric approach. Today’s modern, always-on customers expect convenience and round the clock support. And they expect slick and seamless delivery.”
It’s an art, but Aylott puts it in scientific terms too.
“Customer experience is a measure of the friction that exists between the customer and their goal,” he says.
“There are three types: physical; cognitive; and emotional. Physical – when the customer is being physically prevented from doing something they want to do, such as the existence of a barrier to accessing a service or some information.
“Cognitive – where too much mental effort is needed by the customer to achieve their goal, like information not being clear enough.”
“And emotional – the most complex and difficult to measure but often the one that has the most impact, such as how a customer feels about their interaction with a brand”
There are some stats too.
According to recent surveys, 75 per cent of all business consumers consider CX to be a major factor when choosing a supplier; 80 per cent consider it to be as important as the product itself; and 96 per cent says poor service would drive them elsewhere.
Helpfully, Aylott has five tips for resellers on how to optimise their billing to deliver the best CX possible.
Tip #1 – Best-Practice Billing Processes
Import CDRs daily; reconcile on a daily basis; compare data with previous billing periods; spot discrepancies in good time; identify and resolve issues quickly.
“The more you stay on top of your data, the more fluid your billing processes,” says Aylott.
“Billing on the same day each month also helps customer cash flow and avoids panic and mis-billing. It also means you’re not in a rush at the point of billing, when human error can occur.
“One of the tools on our platforms lists the top 10 variants between billing periods, so you can see any odd differences. That’s a great way of spotting issues before they hit.”
