There’s little doubt at this stage in the mobile broadband era that customer experience matters. Operator executives understand this well – unfortunately, they understand this in large part because they have the heavy churn figures to prove it.
For example, market research from Ericsson has found that every year in Southeast Asia some cellcos experience churn of more than 50% of their subscriber base, with millions of customers switching service providers. Tellingly, the majority of that churn is because of unfulfilled expectations with the quality of service received.
The high cost of customer churn means that operators now understand that there is a strong business case for keeping existing customers satisfied, says Sebastian Barros, Head Of Engagement Practice, of the Malaysia and Sri Lanka customer unit at Ericsson.
“A recent survey of more than 100 C-suite representatives from operators across Southeast Asia found that 81% felt that improving customer experience is key to improved financial performance, and 77% said customer experience is a key driver for differentiation,” Barros says.
Barros points out that customer experience can deliver significant financial impact in three ways: operational efficiency, revenue optimization and customer lifetime value. “Put simply, working toward and investing for increased customer retention and extended customer lifetime value is far less costly than new customer acquisition.”