Price Is a Proxy for Value

I can’t wait until we are no longer talking about customer experience management. I am tired of hearing it and I am tired of typing it – mostly because I type one-handed and the “x" and the “p" on the keyboard are like New Mexico and New Hampshire on a map and I seldom navigate from one to the other without error. But that’s about me and we’re talking about the customer here.

The real reason I hope we stop talking about CEM soon – and by soon I mean by 2014 – is because that will mean the concept is inherent to the way service providers do business. It will no longer be a concept but a practice. And that will be awesome for all of us. 

But in the meantime, we have to continue to talk about it and talk about it and talk about it. That’s how things get fine-tuned; that’s how they stay top of mind; that’s how we discover what works and what doesn’t.

The headline for this blog comes from a quote by Susan McNeice, vice president of software research in Yankee Group's Network Research group, in the recent Webinar called “Transformation Begins and Ends with the Customer,"  which you can watch on demand here.

Speaking about the ways service providers used to differentiate services, McNeice said, that doing so based on price is a dead-end for consumers and carriers. “We know we can’t compete on price any more; it is a race to the bottom. Just ask any of our friends in the long distance business and they’ll tell you what a good long-term strategy that isn’t," she said.

Price, she said, is just a proxy for over all value. And value, including the overall experience, is what customers want. “The user experience has established itself as the differentiator in the marketplace," McNeice said.

Another stalwart of differentiation that recently fell by the wayside, leaving CE to lead the way, was device differentiation. Now that the iPhone can be used on almost any network, for example, the device can’t be leveraged to keep a customer. “Identity is no longer confined to one particular carrier, so it doesn’t make sense to hang [one’s] future on device manufacturers. It is no longer a supply chain they can control nor a market presence they can control. So they can’t differentiate by device."

McNeice then handed the discussion to Jim Hayden, managing director of business intelligence at TEOCO, who took the talk about CEM in the only direction it can go if it is to get the traction it needs by 2014 so we can stop talking about it. Hayden tied Customer Experience to the bottom line.

After all, putting the customer first is a touchy-feely kind of approach that doesn’t say anything about the business. Take a listen to Hayden, whose company focuses primarily on margin assurance, cost and revenue management and routing optimization, set a new direction for achieving the desired customer experience while getting real about the business.

“The goal is to provide a comprehensive platform to understand your customer not just along customer dimensions, but along all the dimensions important to your business, Hayden said.

He and McNeice say much more here.

E-mail me at tmcelligott@vpico.com or click on the comment button below.