Big (Little) Data and Customer Experience - CEM Blog Part Four

It has been a little while since the last blog article on Customer Experience Management, so if you're in need of a quick refresher then please follow these links

Part One: Putting yourself in the customers shoes
Part Two: Customer experience and the call centre
Part Three: Going Social

All clued up? excellent.

Big data is proving to be a very important and ever growing part of a business. The ability to collect more and more data from an increasing range of sources provides some very potent opportunities for business. However for businesses to really achieve that ‘write home about’ customer experience, you need ‘little data’.

Big data, better operations

Now, by its very nature, big data gives an extremely broad look at all our customers and what they're up to. It allows us to spot trends in customer behaviour and habits as a whole – both good and bad. CSPs can use this to great advantage, identifying behaviour patterns, trends and pain points for customers and work out solutions that build customer advocacy.

Let us use an example to make it more realistic. An increasing number of people are using OTT services like Netflix and Lovefilm. Not only are more of your customers using them, but they're using them more frequently and these data heavy services can impact the network.

Rob Rich, MD of Insights at TM Forum, says the operators are “using network and customer data to learn the habits of their most valuable customers.” They are using network data to determine where the most strain is being put on the network, so “by comparing the two, they can drive support for future network investments that will improve network performance and boost customer satisfaction.” [source]

This is a perfect example of what big data can do. By looking at the whole picture, companies can find patterns, trends and pain points across a wide section of customers, which can only ever be a good thing.

So what about small data? 

Small data is where unique gains can be made that boosts customer experience and satisfaction. Little data lets us spot opportunities and enables personalised customer interactions. It can be achieved with the data that a CSR should be able to readily access via their CRM.

The key is how easy it is for a customer service agent to access that information and how closely it is linked a 360 degree view of the customer. The customer service agent must be able to view recent customer interactions and all information needs to be clearly accessible, quickly.

Imagine a scenario where you don't have to re-tell the story you've already told to several people because the customer service agent already knows that last week your phone line conked out. The engineer was meant to turn up this morning, but canceled, and that no one has yet replied to your question via social media. It would be blissful, wouldn't it?

Or maybe recognising that a customer is routinely hitting data or download limits. Or that they've been late payers recently, but offering solutions, such as putting a hold on premium services, would be beneficial for the customer for a few months.

All these 'above and beyond' measures build customer loyalty. We know that loyal customers are worth up to 10x their first purchase. [source]

Companies have some, if not all this information available to them already. They have done for a long time. The key to Little Data is making sure you take advantage of it!

Big data and little data are both important strategic considerations for service providers. Ensure the network is performing to its optimum ability and build customer loyalty. Data, big or small, is the gold to each operators armour.