TM Forum recently published the results of a global survey of communications service providers (CSPs) in an attempt to answer the question: What do customers want, and how can CSPs provide them with it? This is a hotly debated topic and an issue that has been presented countless times. According to TM Forum, customers need simplicity, transparency and control, which seem like simple criteria. However, time and time again, CSPs have failed to meet these expectations, leading to customer churn.
Because mobile data is growing so rapidly and inexorably with the expanding adoption of smart phones, customer experience management is rising in importance. At the same time, CSPs are facing increasing challenges due to network complexity fueled by the transition to packet-based backhaul and LTE, the growing array of mobile applications and the diversity of quality of experience (QoE) expectations. Without an end-to-end view of all network components in use, CSPs are struggling to manage their networks, hurting rather than helping performance and customer QoE.
Thus, CSPs must take a service-centric approach to the delivery of network connectivity with a solution that gives them actionable performance visibility into services and enables them to map service-related issues to network resources, and vice-versa. With a network performance management tool that provides consolidated, end-to-end visibility of not only infrastructure, but service quality and availability as well across the mobile infrastructure, CSPs can begin to establish high standards for customer experience management. Only then will the industry be able to move beyond customer experience management limitations and into the next generation of network performance.
