Defining Customer Experience Management – A Conversation with Susan McNeice, Yankee Group

Even if you have the latest and greatest communications technology at your disposal, if the user experience is poor, all value is lost. It is the provider’s job to ensure that user expectations are met and that network disturbances don’t negatively affect the end user’s experience, which could result in costly churn and lost revenue. Susan McNeice, Vice President, Yankee Group, will be leading a breakout session at the Progress Revolution 2011 conference (going on now) titled "Emerging Trends and Improving Customer Experience Management in Communications and Media." We asked Susan to expound on customer experience management – what is is, what it entails and how companies can effectively achieve it in a consistent, transparent and dynamic way. Here's what she had to say:

PRGS: How do you define customer experience management?

SM: Customer Experience Management is a cross-functional discipline that aims to deliver a consistent, transparent and dynamic relationship between CSP and customer.  The goal is to achieve competitive differentiation by viewing the world through the eyes of one¹s customers and modifying interactions of the experience accordingly.

PRGS: What does it mean to be 'consistent, transparent and dynamic'?

SM : Consistent  - When service providers promise customers certain coverage, quality, pricing or availability, customers expect consistent behavior from the network, customer care, billing, provisioning and all other touch points.

Dynamic - Service provider actions that affect the connected experience must be rapid, personalized, immersive and competitive. Connected users of all services look for real-time or at least near-real-time delivery.

Transparent - The relationship should be evident and in plain sight at all times, but ³fine print² restrictions and caveats are almost always present in customers¹ experiences with their service providers.  In fact, customers are actually willing to pay 10 percent more per month to avoid billing surprises.