Keeping customers happy

Enterprise telco services provider Cable&Wireless is attempting to carry out its customer satisfaction surveys in a manner that it says is different from its peers in the industry.

It wants to take in what its customers have said and improve on what it can offer to them. For instance, a client from the finance industry had issues scheduling its video conference calls; there were cases when meeting rooms were booked for such sessions but still saw staff members who are not using the service, having discussions in there.

After hearing the customer's issues, the Cable&Wireless service delivery team decided to help out by training and placing operators to manage global video conference calls.

"What we did was to work with them to understand what was recurring and rather than just saying, "what's your problem, we'll sort your rooms out". We said as part of the service, we might as well take out the rooms as well. And the fact that we were able to get that up within a week, they really appreciated it," says Mike Powell, vice president, service delivery worldwide, Cable&Wireless.

Deeper processes

While customer satisfaction surveys are nothing revolutionary, the service delivery team is taking its processes deeper.

Each month, a survey is conducted by the team, compared to the standard practice of carrying out such studies once or twice a year. "As far as I'm concerned, once or twice a year is not sufficient data points to really understand how you're tracking the business," said Powell.

When these questionnaires are sent out, the service delivery team wants a 100 per cent response rate from clients. "Not only do we want to ensure that statistically we're gaining an accurate picture, but we also don't want anyone's concerns going unnoticed," explained Powell. He estimates these surveys generally only achieve a 20 per cent yield.

The system is set up so that each customer gets to hear from Cable&Wireless every three to four months. This is to allow a time window to see improvements in the areas that the client wanted the telco to address.

The service delivery also wants to hear from every point of contact within the client. "If it's someone in the business that hates you, you find that you want to hear from him as much as the guy who likes us," said Powell.

One example where Cable&Wireless has listened and improved its services is the setting up of the Order Co-ordination desk for the Asia Pacific. The desk, set up in Hong Kong, offers a single point of contact for the customers, to check on the status of their order provisioning once it has been entered into the system. The Order Co-ordination desk has significantly improved clarity and transparency of post-sales service delivery.

"Rather than collating the numbers and crowing over the fact that they're getting better, it is the continuous self-improvement plan that sits behind every one of them. I would argue that most of our competitors do not do that at all," said Powell.