As the UK ushers in a new age of digital infrastructure, it represents a huge opportunity for the industry to start making decisions that put customers first, says Elsa Chen, chief customer officer at CityFibre. Here she discusses why putting customers first is so important for the digital infrastructure industry.
With the rollout of full fibre networks across the country well underway, the industry can now offer unprecedented visibility and control to customers in a way that was simply not possible on legacy networks. Previously unimaginable speeds and the ability to provide real-time updates, mean user experience will sit at a level never seen before. With these new standards of connectivity in place, it’s important that the industry does everything it can to translate this into a better customer experience.
Learning lessons from the past
Our ethos is based on taking a transformational approach to customer experience in digital infrastructure and ensuring it sits right at the heart of building a network that is fundamentally better by design. Ultimately, a modern, customer-focused company needs to deliver more than just a functioning network, it also needs to understand what the market needs, wants, and then how it will be able to deliver it. In an industry like online shopping, we have seen technology completely revolutionise business models and customer service.
For too long, the industry has focused on the technology stack and not enough on what customers want. Ofcom’s latest service standards report, released in May this year, perfectly illustrates how customers are still experiencing ‘hit-and-miss’ levels of customer service from major providers. This is skewing perceptions of the sector as a whole. The industry needs to actively work to change it by putting service excellence at the centre of the UK’s broadband networks.
Historically, network providers have left end-customer service to ISPs, but it’s time to think differently, challenge that perception and create new ways of working. Digital infrastructure builders should be as instrumental in delivering exceptional customer service as internet service providers are. It’s critical to understand exactly who customers are and what they need from you whilst immediate customers may be wholesale partners, carriers and ISPs, the ultimate end customer and the ones that matters most, are in the homes and offices relying on your infrastructure and service delivery.
It’s time to recognise that service quality is a shared differentiator between infrastructure providers and service providers, and getting that service right means that everyone feels the benefit. Collaborating in order to have a happy customer is key, and it requires a true partnership approach to align two separate organisations in delivering a joint customer experience vision. This involves making the right tech investments, working with ISP partners and end customers to understand exactly what they need, and working together to co-create a superior service experience.
The customer comes first
Providing customer experience goes beyond just connecting homes and businesses. Ultimately, partners back those who succeed because their service quality directly impacts theirs. This in turn affects their reputation and their customer satisfaction levels in what is becoming an increasingly competitive market. Providing quality service means stripping cost out of their businesses and enabling best value for their customers, leading to happy and loyal end customers that stick with your brand. Network providers should be striving to reach a point where customers never need to contact their partners or them with issues or concerns. To achieve this, delivering an exceptional service is vital and understanding your customers’ behaviours and requirements will be essential to this.
Take for example Deliveroo and Amazon, companies that have set incredibly high standards and that represent the best of user experiences in their fields. They, along with a number of other app-based services have harnessed technology to raise the bar for their industries. Think about the type of services and experiences you never asked for at the start, but now can’t live without. It’s now time for our industry to bring in a similar customer service revolution and to keep pushing for higher standards.
At CityFibre, we recognise the powerful role data has to play when it comes to achieving the coveted industry goal of friction-free service. Data is vital not only for how we design and build our networks, but also how we serve our customers. For example, we use data to identify property characteristics and spot ingress points that reduce the disruption when engineers arrive to connect fibre to homes. We also carefully share key data with our partners and work with them to develop technology that can automate responses to customer requests, improve network maintenance through real time monitoring, and give them greater transparency into issues to help deliver a superior service.
In recent years, the UK has seen a phenomenal increase in private sector investment into a new generation of digital infrastructure, with full fibre currently sweeping the country at a rapid pace. These new standards of technology have to be backed up by new standards of customer service, and network providers need to extend their customer lens out to those whose daily life relies on their network, not just direct partners.
No matter the industry, increased market competition is a key driver for transformative innovation and change, and customer experience should be a beneficiary of this. The tools and people required are all there, so it’s time to build a network and service experience that’s better by design, transforming the UK’s digital landscape and benefitting this generation and many more to come.
The author is Elsa Chen, chief customer officer at CityFibre.
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