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.

Going Social - Customer Experience Management - Part Three

I recently contacted my mobile provider. I had a short question, nothing important, but couldn’t find answer on website. It wasn’t worth calling up about so I sent them a quick tweet instead. I was able to get on with my day and an hour or two later, I received a reply to my question.

Simple, no fuss answer and I genuinely felt better about the service they were providing me. Plus, I didn’t have to listen to that damn automated voice telling me to ‘press 2’. That’s a pretty simple, cheap, way to grow customer loyalty.

Having a dedicated social media team ready to respond to questions via Twitter and Facebook will make a big difference to your customer and non-customer perception.

In my last blog, I addressed customer experience and the call centre; here I want to discuss more proactive ways of addressing customer experience! In particular, we'll be looking at a couple of examples of excellent customer experience using social media channels.

So what does a good Social Media page look like?

Three mobile UK is an example I like to use for good customer experience (note: that I use a different provider). They present a bright, inviting Twitter page and are not afraid to appear a bit more human - a trend that goes down very well on social media sites.

Have a look at this picture;

(click to view a larger image)

You can see who you're talking too because there are pictures of the team, they sign off their messages with their initials and they have information for opening hours and web addresses, etc.

An honest interaction that doesn’t sound contrite or scripted like it does when you phone a call centre the service is personalised and pleasant…

That’s not all a Social Team can do - Disaster Management

Not so long ago, bad service would have been shared with family, friends and perhaps co-workers. But now customers can talk about companies and experiences to hundreds of people they don’t know - right across the country - in a very public way. And we all know bad news is shared more often than good!

Here however, is the bonus - you can intercept this bad news by addressing the customer and giving them a friendly outlet for their grief.. The bad coverage doesn’t have to go unchecked in the kitchen over a cup of tea!

Addressing it enables companies to diffuse it and solve it directly or refer the customer back to the CSR or support team to resolve it, at this point, it may be worth directing them to a more senior team member as we know what the benefits of that can be!

On the flip side, companies can also share good feedback people have voiced with retweets, likes and by favoriting posts - feedback that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Let’s recap…

The benefits of Social Media Experience Management are obvious – managed properly one can regain, otherwise lost, control over the customer conversation, address concerns and complaints that were previously hidden from view, build a fuller picture of your customer, appear, more human and it really doesn’t cost that much either!

What’s not to love about that?

In the next part I'll be looking at Big Data.
You can find part one here
You can find part two here


CoralTree Systems is a leading provider of innovative BSS solutions, whose clients include some of the market’s leading communications operators. 

You can find out more at our website www.CoralTreeSystems.com

This blog post was written by Craig Maxwell-Brown - Business Development for CoralTree Systems Ltd.