For operators however, there remains a clear divide between customer experience managers focused on NPS (Net Promoter Score) and the technical operations tracking TPS (Technical Promoter Score).
Right now, operators are pushing hard to improve their NPS records.
Based on customer surveys and feedback, the NPS score typically achieved by operators is below 20.
Amazon, in contrast, routinely hits 70, leveraging its great customer history and understanding to deliver a relevant, personal and timely service.
Of course no operator is going to make a leap from 5 to 70 overnight – or over the next few years.
However, by focusing purely on soft measures, operators are overlooking a critical aspect of the customer experience: the day-to-day network performance.
Good customer experience is as much about minimising dropped calls and maximising uptime as it is about friendly call centre staff.
Continuing to consider TPS and NPS as completely separate is not only divisive but also a completely flawed strategy – the two sets of metrics are clearly linked, and together determine an organisation’s overall QoE.
Indeed, recent studies have revealed a clear correlation between aggregated TPS measures and NPS: those operators with a low NPS also have a 50 percent lower score on aggregated TPS.
This shows that technical measures can provide organisations with a clear insight into the current QoE and, therefore, the risk of customer churn; clearly, neither should be considered in isolation.
So how should operators use the TPS to drive up NPS?
The biggest challenge is that most systems are measured separately – with Operators managing a raft of KPIs across 2G, 3G and 4G networks.
Without an integrated approach an organisation cannot achieve a clear view of the overall performance and, hence, QoE.
With a single source of aggregated KPIs reflecting both TPS and NPS, organisations can also begin to weight KPIs based on market specific requirements.
For example, should the company be most concerned about latency, the speed of Ethernet connection or the number of dropped calls?
With an aggregated KPI in place, a company can both gain more insight into those factors that impact the QoE today – and evolve that weighting as product offerings and customer expectations change.
Operators may not, just yet, have Amazon’s high NPS score in their sights but any improvement is going to reduce customer churn.
A higher NPS is the goal – and the insight provided by real-time TPS now provides an essential measure to support continual improvement to the overall QoE.
(Opinion by By Victor Donselaar)