Without exception, everyone I and the VanillaPlus editorial team have spoken to during the course of preparing this issue has a story about a bad customer experience with a CSP. That won’t be news to regular readers but what is significant is that these stories involve failures that occur across multiple CSP channels. Typical stories involve complete lack of integration between retail stores and online purchasing, no call centre awareness of what is deployed in a customer’s home, receipt of irrelevant or unavailable offers and, my favourite, a customer being sent an unrequested femtocell to a location where there was no need for it. All of these stories have varying impacts on the CSPs involved. Not being able to complete a transaction started online and having to start again in a physical store is irritating, not being able to complete a transaction in a physical store is cause to shop elsewhere. Being sent and charged for equipment you don’t want is cause to change CSP. The stakes are high and getting higher for CSPs and they have all been working, often with inappropriate existing systems, to try to create an integrated customer experience that brings all their customer channels – and other channels such as social media – together. They want to provide great experience regardless of the channel involved but their history is one of failing to deliver great experience using a single channel. This issue addresses the significant challenges involved for a CSP in moving from not being particularly good at CEM in an individual channel to becoming excellent at CEM across every potential customer touchpoint. Omni-channel could be an omni-shambles but CSPs have the opportunity to be omniscient and omnipotent if they get it right. Their customer data and their support teams will surely outperform the virtual care offered by web companies and OTT providers but they must achieve full integration and total consistency across all channels. Enjoy the magazine!
George Malim
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