Customer Experience – A Short Guide to Long-Lasting Relations

When you think about network service providers, “superior customer service” might not be the first thing that comes to mind. But today’s customers have more choice than ever before and choosing a provider that embraces the value of its customers is an increasingly important factor in the selection process. At Telia Carrier, our award-winning customer experience – or CX – lies at the heart of everything we do. And it pays off: 75 percent of customer issues are resolved without escalation (50 percent on first-call resolution) which is far above our industry peers.

So, what are the pillars of a successful CX program?

First Impression Lasts

The customer journey, and experience, typically starts with the sales process and the impression it creates lasts. Therefore, it’s crucial our salespeople understand the customer’s needs, their desired outcomes, and provide clear communication to the customer. But customers don’t always want to interface with a salesperson, and organizations need to have easy-to-use omnichannel tools in place. It really comes down to choice. For customers who want to order service through our website, we’ve made self-service options available to them.

Delivering CX

Then we have the delivery process, and this is often when CX begins to falter. The customer is the main event and taking the time to understand what they are trying to accomplish is the foundation for creating a superior customer experience. As we move into delivery, the quality of communication is our primary focus by promptly responding to customer requests and providing the right information quickly, openly, honestly, and transparently.

Getting Personal

Telia Carrier takes CX a step further by grouping our organization into segment-specific delivery teams. This enables us to build better relationships with our customers and understand their communication preferences. Over the entire relationship, a typical Telia Carrier customer will only interact with two or three delivery coordinators. This fosters a close customer relationship and a level of familiarity customers value. To create a culture that is focused on providing a personal customer experience, Telia Carrier incorporates our company values throughout our business practices: Dare, Care, and Simplify.

Empowering CX

Even though we’re passionate about technology we don’t want to force customers to have to use our tools. We rather develop tools we can use to enable our support staff to spend more time with customers and quickly resolve any issues that might occur along the customer journey. One example of this is how we empower customer service reps (CSRs) with the right technology and rapid-issue-resolution tools, including a self-learning, AI-based troubleshooting system. This system allows them to quickly identify the cause of issues customers are experiencing and identify the solutions with the highest probability to solve the underlying issue. 

Interested in learning more on this topic? I was recently interviewed by Pipeline Magazine – check out the full article here: “Getting CX Right with Telia Carrier”.

You can also read more about our customer support processes.

Andy Haynes, COO