Telesperience
Customer Experience
Benchmark 2013, part
of the Benchmarking
Series
The evolving
role of social
media in the
telecoms
customer
experience
Teresa Cottam, Chief Strategist

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Telesperience Benchmark: The Evolving Role of Social Media in the Telecoms Customer Experience
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Sponsor’s Message ..............................................................................................................................................3
1 The telecoms customer experience................................................................................................................4
2 How important is the customer experience to CSPs? ....................................................................................5
3 How CSPs rate the customer experience they provide ..................................................................................7
4 What are CSPs top three customer experience goals?..................................................................................8
5 Who is driving social media adoption and usage?..........................................................................................9
6 What are CSPs using social media for? .......................................................................................................10
7 Investment patterns......................................................................................................................................13
8 How CSPs assess social success................................................................................................................15
9 Summary......................................................................................................................................................16
10 Research Methodology.................................................................................................................................17

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Sponsor’s Message
The telecommunications industry is arguably one of the fiercest consumer markets we know. The pace of
innovation in telecom runs at breakneck speed and will only always accelerate. Providers are left with delivering
services that commoditize practically as soon as they launch—launch to a particularly critical and demanding
audience, quick to take their SIM cards and go elsewhere if disappointed.
Increasingly, telecom service providers have faced these challenges by turning to the customer experience as a point
of differentiation. And as today’s consumers become more and more social, they now look to social media to
deliver the type of differentiated experiences that translate to long-term customer loyalty.
Yet social media remains a new and complex landscape. Many operators still have big question marks around the
social customer experience—everything from “what is it” to “who should own it” to “how should we measure
success”. The constantly emerging nature of social media challenges all business today to sift through the
cacophony of channels, technologies and use cases to emerge with a sustaining investment strategy that really sings.
In our book, a social media investment strategy that really sings is one that makes a bottom-line difference. As
telecoms look to the social customer experience for competitive advantage, it’s critical that they develop a better
understanding of exactly how investments in social media can bring them closer to their customer experience
goals—and impact the bottom line.
We set out to benchmark the telecom social customer experience in 2013 in order to better guide today’s service
providers toward strategies that make sense. We asked over 40 global telecoms about their social customer
experience goals, investments, strategies, offerings, and results.
We found that delivering exceptional customer experiences in telecom is top of mind and getting more difficult.
Just 5% of telecoms today think their CXP is excellent—down from 8% just two years ago. But we also found that
deeper investments in social lead to more CXP confidence. Telecoms who use social to transform the customer
experience, who invest in on-domain social platforms are more apt to rate their overall CXP as good and less apt
rate it average.
In general, we found social media technology adoption in the telecom industry to be strong and growing fast. We
found that those who are serious about social—have owned social platforms, robust social customer engagement
and enlistment strategies, and involve more of the business in the social customer experience—get serious results.
These more socially mature telecoms enjoy significantly greater reduction in call center volume and support costs.
While there did emerge clear market leaders who are now leveraging the full power of social across the entire
business, we found that the industry has some growing to do. There remains quite a bit of opportunity for social
media investment expansion in certain geographies—particularly APAC, and certain use cases—particularly social
support.
As the market continues to mature, the detailed findings in this benchmark study should help telecom service
providers make better social media investment decisions and better measure their success.
Rob Tarkoff
CEO - Lithium Technologies

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Telesperience Benchmark: The Evolving Role of Social Media in the Telecoms Customer Experience
1 The telecoms customer experience
Competition continues to increase in the telecoms market, while core services are commoditising, meaning that the
customer experience has come to the fore as a means – and arguably for some communications service providers
(CSPs) the single, most important means – of differentiating their offering and increasing their competitiveness. In
recent years not only has there been a much greater emphasis placed upon optimising the experience that’s provided
to telecoms customers, but considerable discussion about the need for CSPs to become less technology-centric
businesses and more customer-centric.
Undoubtedly there is considerable variation in how well individual CSPs are performing in terms of meeting the
needs of their customers, and in how fast they are becoming more customer centric. The re-engineering of telecoms
operators into customer-centric service providers has not always been an easy transition for CSPs to make, and it’s
one that’s being made in the face of vociferous commentary and criticism from both the media and customers,
whose expectations have evolved faster than some CSPs’ offerings. However, progress is being made globally and
best practice from both within the telecoms industry as well as from outside it can be leveraged to improve
performance.
One major change is the adoption of social technology. When Telesperience measured CSPs’ performance in 2010
with regards to the customer experience they delivered, many CSPs said they were planning on employing social
media and social CRM platforms to create a more personalised and supportive experience for customers. Those
plans have now come to fruition and social media technology is widely deployed within the industry.
The question now is whether CSPs are fully exploiting the capabilities of social technology and embracing the
possibilities it offers for their businesses. Social technology is no longer being used solely for interacting with
customers, but is helping create new ways of doing business and new opportunities for CSPs.
As social technology extends outside the CRM domain, it’s important to understand how different CSPs are using it
and what they intend to use it for in future. To do this, Telesperience has conducted primary research amongst CSPs
worldwide of different types and sizes. In this report we present the findings of this study, which reveals how CSPs
think they’re performing with regards to the customer experience and their use of social techniques, what they’re
using it for and, importantly, what they plan to use it for. This study acts as an industry benchmark for CSPs,
providing in-depth insight for them to use to judge their own performance against.
Seven key findings include:
• The customer experience will grow in importance to CSPs’ businesses from 8.20/10.00 today to
9.39/10.00 by 2013 (see Figure 1)
• Only 5% of CSPs believe they provide an excellent customer experience today (see Figure 4)
• Increasing customer loyalty is the number 1 goal for CSPs in 2013 (see Figure 6)
• The marketing department is the main driver for social technology adoption in telecoms service providers
(see Figure 8)
• 93% of CSPs are now connecting with their customers through social networks (see Figure 10)
• 15% of CSPs have brought customer-sourced innovation to market, and 12% have already derived
revenues from their customers’ suggestions (see Figure 15)
• 95% of CSPs are either maintaining or increasing their budgets for social media in 2013 (see Figure 17)
Telesperience Customer Experience
Benchmark 2013: The evolving role of social
media in the telecoms customer experience
February 2013

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2 How important is the customer experience to CSPs?
The operators in our study rate the experience they provide to their customers as very important to their business
(8.20/10.00) but believe it will be even more important to their business by 2015 (9.39).
What’s interesting is that when we correlated these findings against how CSPs rated the customer experience in
2010, we discovered that the current importance placed on the customer experience was almost identical to that
placed on it in 2010 (8.30). And likewise, in 2010 operators also thought that the customer experience would
increase in importance by 2013 – expecting its importance to the business to be 9.25.
Figure 1 Comparison of how valuable CSPs think the customer experience is to their business (2010 and 2013)
8.30
8.20
9.25
9.39
7.50 8.00 8.50 9.00 9.50
2010: average importance
2013: average importance
2010: expected importance by 2013
2013: expected importance by 2015
Source: Telesperience studies 2010 and 2013
In both studies CSPs were asked to rate the importance of the
customer experience to their current and future business on a scale of 1-10
Comparing the results from these two studies shows that CSPs consistently believe the customer experience will
increase in importance to their future business. The findings also suggest that CSPs are still not fully leveraging the
value of the customer experience to their businesses, because they are not yet realising the increased value they
anticipated in 2010 – now expecting this value to be realised around 2015 (that is, in the future). What’s also notable
from Figure 1 is that in 2013 CSPs rate the value of the customer experience to their business marginally lower than
they did in 2010, but they believe its value to their future business will be greater than they anticipated in 2010.
• In 2010 and 2013 CSPs rated the importance of the customer experience to their businesses as being
roughly the same (8.30 in 2010 and 8.20 in 2013).
• In both studies they believed the customer experience would increase in importance to their business (9.25
in 2010 and 9.39 in 2013).
• In 2013 CSPs have not realised the level of importance they anticipated back in 2010 (rating it 8.20 in 2013
as opposed to anticipating in 2010 it would be 9.25 by 2013).
• In 2010 CSPs rated the future importance of a great customer experience to their business as 9.25; they
now rate it as being worth 9.39 by 2015.
However, there is considerable regional variation in terms of how CSPs rate the customer experience’s importance
to their business – both now and in 2015 – as shown in Figure 2.
• The customer experience is seen as most important to their business by European CSPs who rated it 8.77
in 2013 and anticipated it would grow in importance to 9.92 by 2015. This reflects the high level of
competition in the European market and thus the requirement to differentiate their offering from that of
rivals.
• The customer experience is least important to APAC operators who rated it 7.78 in 2013. However, they
perceive that its importance to their business will grow rapidly in the next few years, and by 2015 rate
importance at 9.11 – closing the gap substantially between APAC and other world regions. This reflects the
maturation of some of the high-growth APAC markets where exponential growth and an emphasis on
maximising market share is now giving way to the requirement to retain the highest ARPU customers as
the market shifts to an emphasis on revenue maximisation from each subscriber and loyalty.

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Telesperience Benchmark: The Evolving Role of Social Media in the Telecoms Customer Experience
• North America rates the customer experience as being more important to their business in both 2013 and
2015 than Asian CSPs, but does not place as much importance on it as European CSPs do. This reflects a
hybrid positioning where there is relatively less competition in large parts of North America than in
Europe, but a growing recognition that maintaining ARPUs requires CSPs to focus on customer retention
and loyalty.
As might be expected, all three regions show an increase in the perceived importance of the customer experience to
the CSP business by 2015 (see Figure 3).
Figure 2 How valuable CSPs think the customer experience is to their business (2013), regional breakdown
8.77
8.55
8.20
7.78
Europe
North America
Global
APAC
Source: Telesperience 2013
Figure 3 How valuable CSPs think the customer experience will be to their business by 2015,
regional breakdown
9.92
9.73
9.39
9.11
Europe
North America
Global
APAC
Source: Telesperience 2013

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3 How CSPs rate the customer experience they provide
Despite the importance that CSPs place upon the customer experience (see Figure 1) very few regard themselves as
providing an “excellent” customer experience in 2013 (5%). In fact, as can be seen in Figure 4, the proportion of
CSPs that regard themselves as providing an “excellent” customer experience has dropped marginally since
Telesperience’s 2010 study (when it was 8%).
Likewise the number of CSPs rating themselves as providing a “good” customer experience has fallen from 63% in
2010 to 54% in 2013. However, those rating themselves as providing an “average” experience has risen from 21% in
2010 to 39% in 2013. Fortunately, those now rating themselves as providing a “below average” experience has fallen
from 8% to 2%. This reveals that the worst performing CSPs believe they are improving, but the number of CSPs
who believe they provide an outstanding customer experience has fallen.
This finding reflects the fact that the customer experience continually evolves and commoditises. There is thus
strong pressure towards a customer experience “norm”, which means what was once an “excellent” or “good”
customer experience will rapidly become an “average” experience as more companies are able to provide that type
of experience. In order for a CSP to continue to provide an outstanding experience it’s therefore necessary for them
to continually innovate to remain ahead of their rivals and provide a truly exceptional and differentiating customer
experience.
Given the high value that CSPs place on the future customer experience, the clear message is that they need to
invest now in order to deliver against their goals and realise the expected business value by 2015.
Figure 4 Comparison of how CSPs rate the customer experience they provide (2010 and 2013)
8%
63%
21%
8%
5%
54%
39%
2%
Excellent
Good
Average
Below average
2010 2013
Source: Telesperience studies 2010 and 2013. In both studies CSPs were asked to rate themselves
as providing either an excellent, good, average or below average customer experience
Again, a geographical analysis reveals distinct regional patterns as to how CSPs think they’re performing with
regards to the customer experience (see Figure 5).
• Asian operators are most likely to be confident they are providing an excellent customer experience, but
this is also the region with the most low-performing operators.
• European operators generally believe they provide either an average or good experience, but 8% believe
they’re delivering an excellent experience. None think they provide a below average experience.
• North American operators believe they deliver either an average or good experience, but none rate
themselves as providing an excellent experience or a below average experience.

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Telesperience Benchmark: The Evolving Role of Social Media in the Telecoms Customer Experience
Figure 5 How CSPs rate the customer experience they provide (2013), regional breakdown
Global Europe APAC North America
Excellent 5% 8% 11% 0%
Good 54% 46% 44% 64%
Average 39% 46% 33% 36%
Below average 2% 0% 11% 0%
Source: Telesperience 2013
4 What are CSPs top three customer experience goals?
Telesperience asked CSPs what their top three customer experience goals were. As can be seen from Figure 6, overall
these were (1) Increase customer loyalty (2) Right-first-time customer service (3) Cost-effective self-service.
Figure 6 Top three customer experience goals 2013
76%
54%
51%
41%
39%
37%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Increase customer loyalty
Right-first-time customer service
Cost-effective self-service
Improved brand perception
Reduce customer complaints
Increase ARPU
Source: Telesperience 2013
CSPs were asked to indicate their top three customer experience goals
Both the second placed and third placed goals (right-first-time customer service and cost-effective self-service) have
strong operational efficiency – that is cost reducing – elements to them. And increasing customer loyalty could be
viewed as another cost-saving strategy, since recruiting new customers is usually more expensive than retaining
existing ones. It’s surprising that given the level of competition and flattening revenues in many markets (as basic
services commoditise), which both put increasing pressure on the “revenue ceiling”, more emphasis is not being
placed on increasing ARPU.

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A geographical analysis reveals some differences in CSP goals however (see Figure 7).
• Europe follows the global norm for the top two goals, but its third most important goals is reducing
customer complaints. This possibly reflects having to manage the effects of new network rollouts, network
congestion, and confusion around data tariffing as Europe moves away from flat rate pricing.
• North America shares the same goals as the global norm but shuffles the importance slightly – seeing cost-
effective self-service as being more important than right first time self-service. This shows a focus on
reducing costs more than on maintaining customer satisfaction. However, North American operators are
cautioned that when self-service doesn’t work first time, it will generate additional or hidden costs in the
form of dissatisfaction, complaints and possibly even churn.
• APAC shares the global concern with increasing customer loyalty but sees increasing ARPU as more
important. Unlike other regions it also rates improved brand perception within its top three goals. This
reflects the fact that many high-growth APAC markets have relatively low ARPUs, and as the next billion
customers are added it is creating a downward pressure on ARPU. In more developed APAC markets the
effects of competition and commoditisation likewise create a downward pressure on ARPU similar to that
seen in Europe. A focus on maintaining or increasing ARPU is therefore a key concern in this region.
Figure 7 Top three customer experience goals 2013 by region
Global Europe APAC North America
1 Increase customer
loyalty
Increase customer
loyalty
Increase ARPU Increase customer
loyalty
2 Right-first-time
customer service
Right-first-time
customer service
Increase customer
loyalty
Cost-effective self-
service
3 Cost-effective self-
service
Reducing customer
complaints
Improved brand
perception
Right-first-time
customer service
Source: Telesperience 2013
5 Who is driving social media adoption and usage?
In most CSPs a mixture of the marketing department and the CRM department are the primary drivers in social media strategy.
However, a wide range of other players influence decisions made about social technology (see Figure 8).
Figure 8 Primary drivers and key influencers of social media adoption and usage
76%
41%
10%
5%
5%
2%
24%
59%
17%
61%
66%
32%
Marketing
Customer
care
Other
IT
Sales
R&D
Primary Driver Influences
.
Source: Telesperience 2013

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Telesperience Benchmark: The Evolving Role of Social Media in the Telecoms Customer Experience
In 8 out of 10 CSPs the marketing department is the primary driver for social media strategy. While customer care is either the
primary driver of social technology adoption and usage (in 4 out of 10 CSPs) or is an important secondary influencer (in 6 out of
10 CSPs). Other key departments such as IT and Sales are highly influential on the decision-making process. Figure 9 shows that
in North America IT is consulted in every single case, but in Europe it is only consulted in 38% of CSPs. Likewise in 82% of
CSPs in North America the Sales department influences decisions, but only in 54% of European and 56% of APAC CSPs is Sales
consulted. This is surprising given the focus APAC has on raising ARPU.
Figure 9 Primary drivers and key influencers of social media adoption and usage, regional differences
Europe APAC North America
Main driver(s) Marketing (85%)
Customer care (54%)
Marketing (89%) Marketing (64%)
Customer care (36%)
Chief influencers Sales (54%)
Customer care (46%)
IT (38%)
Customer care (89%)
Sales (56%)
IT (56%)
IT (100%)
Sales (82%)
Customer care (64%)
Source: Telesperience 2013
6 What are CSPs using social media for?
Using social technology and approaches is now the norm in the telecoms industry. Ninety-three per cent of the
CSPs we spoke to said they are already using social media to connect with their customers. However, the second-
most common use today of social technology is to drive business impact, which shows a maturation in thinking and
goals. By 2015, 9 out of 10 CSPs say they will be using social technology to drive business impact, and 8 out of 10
say they will be using it to drive conversion and to transform the customer experience (see Figure 10).
Figure 10 How CSPs are using social technology (2013)
93%
61%
56%
44%
27%
20%
37%
Connecting with customers through
social networks
Driving business impact
Driving conversion through owned
social hubs
Transforming the customer
experience
Using Plan to use
Source: Telesperience 2013
As can be seen in Figure 11, in general North America is ahead in terms of its use of social media; however in these
four areas the highest growth will be seen in Europe. Europe will be concentrating on utilising the technology to
drive business impact (+62%) and to transform the customer experience (+38%). The biggest growth in usage in
APAC will be to improve the customer experience (+33%) and to drive conversion (+22%). In North America,
which is relatively mature in its use of social technology, the biggest growth areas will be in utilising it to drive
conversion (+27%) and to drive business impact (+18%).

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By 2015 most CSPs will be using social technology to deliver against all four of these goals, demonstrating a rapid
evolution of usage and commoditisation of capabilities. This indicates that what is considered cutting edge today will
be mainstream tomorrow, but it raises two other issues that need to be considered:
• there needs to be continual innovation to remain ahead of the competition.
• CSPs cannot just implement social technology and expect to gain the maximum benefit from it. They need
to embrace what it delivers as an integral part of the way they do business, since to maximise the value
requires CSPs to really focus on their customers and not just on their networks.
Figure 11 How CSPs are using social technology, regional differences
Connecting
with customers
Driving business
impact
Driving conversion Transforming
customer
experience
Global usage 2013 93% 61% 56% 44%
Global usage by 2015 93% 88% 76% 81%
Most advanced region
2013
North America North America North America North America
Most advanced region
by 2015
North America Europe North America North America
Highest growth region
(increase) None
Europe
62
percentage points
North America
27
percentage points
Europe
38
percentage points
Status by 2015 Commoditised Mature Mainstream Mature
Difference between
most/ least advanced
regions by 2015
22
percentage
points
33
percentage
points
13
percentage
points
16
percentage
points
Source: Telesperience 2013
To find out more about how CSPs are using social media to engage with and enable customers, Telesperience asked
CSPs to tell us how they were engaging with their customers. Overall there were four main motivations for engaging
with customers (see Figure 12):
• Loyalty – using social technology to engage with loyal customers was the most common use of the
technology today and by 2015 83% of CSPs will be doing this
• Innovation – customer-centric innovation (that is, gleaning ideas and suggestions from customers) was the
second most common way in which CSPs were utilising social technology for customer engagement today.
By 2015 this will be the most common usage with 86% of CSPs doing this
• Operational – around 44% are enabling existing customers to support other customers and by 2015 64%
of CSPs will be doing this
• Commercial – the least common way of using social technology to engage with customers today was to
support commercial goals. Today only 27% of CSPs are able to engage existing customers to provide new
customers with purchasing advice, although this is set to rise to 59% by 2015.

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Telesperience Benchmark: The Evolving Role of Social Media in the Telecoms Customer Experience
Figure 12 How CSPs are engaging and enabling customers using social technology
68%
59%
44%
27%
15%
27%
20%
32%
Engaging with loyal customers
Enlisting customers to share ideas
Enlisting customers to support other
customers
Enlisting customers to give purchase
advice
Doing Plan to do
Source: Telesperience 2013
In these four aspects of social engagement North America had less of a clear lead over other regions than we saw
when we measured uses of social media. Today North America is more mature in its usage of enlisting customers to
share ideas and support other customers; but Europe is ahead in engaging loyal customers and enlisting customers
to give purchase advice. By 2015 North America will have passed Europe in its usage of engaging loyal customers.
However, APAC will be the most mature market in terms of enlisting customers to give purchasing advice.
Relatively low growth in Europe in comparison to the other regions will see it slip back to third position in every
category except engaging loyal customers
Figure 13 How CSPs are engaging and enabling customers using social technology, regional differences
Engage loyal
customers
Enlist customers to
share ideas
Enlist customers to
support other
customers
Enlist customers to
give purchase
advice
Average global
usage 2013
68% 59% 44% 27%
Average global
usage by 2015
83% 85% 63% 59%
Most advanced
region 2013
Europe North America North America Europe
Most advanced
region by 2015
North America North America North America APAC
Highest growth
region
North America
45
percentage points
APAC
44
percentage points
APAC
22
percentage points
North America
45
percentage points*
Status by 2015 Mature Mature Mainstream Mainstream
Difference
between most/
least advanced
regions
by 2015
15
percentage
points
14
percentage
points
37
percentage
points
13
percentage
points
Source: Telesperience 2013
* in this category APAC is only 1 percentage point behind NAR in terms of growth

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The patterns of growth shown in Figure 13 will result in maturation of some of these areas by 2015. As shown in
Figure 14, sharing customer ideas will be a commodity engagement by 2015 in APAC and North America, as by then
9 out of 10 CSPs will be able to do this and thus it will no longer be a differentiator but just an accepted part of
business-as-usual. Engaging loyal customers will be reaching maturing in Europe and North America, as it still
offers some differentiation, although the vast majority of operators will be able to do it. It is the growing areas of
engagement (‘supporting other customers’ in Europe and APAC, and ‘giving purchasing advice’ in Europe and
North America) that will offer most competitive advantage. At this stage in the market only half the CSPs are able to
deliver the business benefits from these types of engagement, and so they offer points of differentiation both in
terms of the customer experience delivered and commercially. However, as use cases reach maturity, the emphasis
shifts from novelty and simply being able to support or deliver something, to delivering it in a way that drives
business benefit.
Figure 14 Relative maturity of each region in terms of customer engagement 2015
Criteria Europe APAC North America
Sharing ideas 77% 89% 91%
Engaging loyal customers 77% 67% 82%
Supporting other customers 54% 56% 91%
Giving purchasing advice 54% 67% 55%
Source: Telesperience 2013
Key: = Growing = Mainstream = Mature = Commodity
The first of these criteria – sharing ideas – has the potential to offer enormous competitive advantage. CSPs who are
able to utilise customer ideas can lower the cost of innovation whilst also increasing the volume and velocity of
innovation through crowdsourcing techniques. Importantly, the ideas derived may also have a higher likelihood of
being successful, since they were suggested by customers to meet real needs and wants. The commercial potential
offered by customer-derived innovation is such that we were prompted to ask CSPs how they thought they were
performing in this area. As can be seen from Figure 15, the most popular way of uncovering customer ideas is to use
forums, with 63% of CSPs doing that today. However, almost one-third of CSPs (29%) admitted that they still do
not solicit ideas from their customers – putting them at a commercial disadvantage to those that can do this.
Figure 15 How CSPs are using customer-sourced innovation (2013)
63%
29%
22%
15%
12%
Forums etc uncover product
ideas
We don’t solicit product ideas
Crowdsourced innovation driver
of competitive advantage
Customer suggested product
ideas to market
Incremental revenue from
customer suggestions
Source: Telesperience 2013

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Telesperience Benchmark: The Evolving Role of Social Media in the Telecoms Customer Experience
Figure 16 also shows that the most advanced CSPs – around 1 in 10 – have already been able to utilise customer-
sourced ideas not just to launch products, but also to derive revenues from these suggestions. This is an area where
Europe is leading the rest of the world currently, but where CSPs in APAC – with its strong focus on raising ARPU
– could benefit from focusing more effort.
Figure 16 CSPs who are able to utilise customer-sourced innovation
Global Europe APAC North America
Customer suggested
ideas to market
15% 23% 0% 9%
Revenues from
customer suggested
ideas
12% 23% 0% 9%
Source: Telesperience 2013
7 Investment patterns
Social media is one of the key technologies that CSPs plan to invest in. Eighty per cent of the CSPs in this study
intended to increase spending on social media between 2013 and 2015, and 95% are either increasing or holding
spending at the same level (see Figure 17). Related areas such as customer loyalty are also a priority for investment,
with 95% of CSPs maintaining or increasing spending. Some areas fare less well – with call centres and SEO
experiencing a drop in spending in around 1 in 10 CSPs.
Figure 17 Investment areas for CSPs 2013-15
85%
80%
66%
63%
53%
39%
37%
10%
15%
27%
24%
34%
34%
54%
2%
2%
2%
2%
12%
10%
4%
Customer loyalty
Social media
eCommerce
Self-service through owned social hubs
Call center
SEO
Word-of-mouth marketing
Increase Stay same Decrease
Source: Telesperience 2013

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Beneath the global pattern of investment there are also distinct regional variations in terms of systems spending, as
can be seen in Figure 18. The areas that will see increases in investment are identical in Europe and North America,
although a higher proportion of CSPs will increase their spending in these areas in North America than in Europe.
In APAC, CSPs intend to increase spending on loyalty – reflecting the requirement in this market to retain more
high ARPU customers. The increase in spending in e-commerce also reflects this region’s interest in raising ARPU.
In all three regions some CSPs intend to decrease investment in call centres – reflecting a change of strategy from
dealing reactively with enquiries and complaints, to being more proactive in handling these or using alternative
methods such as enabling customers to support other customers (see Section 5). In all three regions some CSPs
intend to reduce spending in SEO as well, perhaps indicating that they are moving to a social engagement model
rather than spending their budget on search to enable customers to find them.
Figure 18 Investment areas for CSPs, regional breakdown
Europe APAC North America
1 Social media (77%) Customer loyalty (88%) Social media (82%)
2 Customer loyalty (76%) E-commerce (78%) Customer loyalty (82%)
3 Self-service through social hubs
(54%)
Social media (66%) Self-service through social
hubs (72%)
3 E-Commerce (8%) N/A Word of mouth marketing
(18%)
2 SEO (8%) SEO (11%) SEO (18%)
1 Call Centre (8%) Call Centre (11%) Call Centre (18%)
Source: Telesperience 2013
8 How CSPs assess social success
Globally the most common measure used to judge whether social initiatives are successful is customer satisfaction
ratings such as C-Sat scores (see Figure 19). However, this is being combined with a number of other measures –
including metrics from popular social networking sites.
More sophisticated measures that require initiatives to be linked to performance in other areas are less commonly
used today, but we would expect these to grow in importance as CSPs begin to use social technology for purposes
other than simply connecting with customers. However, it can be challenging for CSPs to track cause and effect in
order to judge social media performance, due to their complex and siloed IT infrastructure and departmentalisation.
Somewhat surprisingly, nearly 2 out of 10 CSPs are not using any measures to judge whether social initiatives are
successful – and this holds true across all three regions.
As can be seen from Figure 20, in APAC and North America sales revenues attributed to social channels are one of
the measures being used to judge performance – this is consistent with APAC’s focus on increased ARPU.
However, in Europe deflected support cases are being used more commonly as a measure of success, which reflects
this region’s need to reduce operational costs. Only about 3 out of 10 CSPs in Europe use sales attributed to social
channels as a measure of success, but although this trails behind the proportion in APAC and North America using
this measure, it is not substantially removed from it.
Telesperience believes the way social success is being measured also reflects a maturation process in the use of social
technology. Initially it has been used for engaging with customers (that is, communication) and thus C-Sat scores
and social media metrics are adequate measures of success. But as use of social technology becomes more complex
and is used for more sophisticated social engagements, the measures used to judge success likewise have to expand

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Telesperience Benchmark: The Evolving Role of Social Media in the Telecoms Customer Experience
and become more sophisticated. In the most mature CSPs social technology becomes an essential part of product
innovation and sales success (that is, revenue maximisation), and thus sales performance data becomes increasingly
important.
Figure 19 Method CSPs use to measure social success
17%
24%
37%
41%
63%
63%
We don't measure it
SEO rankings for branded
community pages
Sales revenue attributed to
social channels
Number of support cases
deflected by social media
Metrics from popular social
networks
Customer satisfaction
Source: Telesperience 2013
Figure 20 Method CSPs use to measure social success, regional differences
Europe APAC North America
1 C-Sat (54%) C-Sat (89%) Metrics from social networks
(64%)
2 Metrics from social networks
(54%)
Metrics from social networks
(56%)
C-Sat (45%)
3 Deflected support cases (54%) Sales revenues (44%) Sales revenues (36%)
Percentage that don’t
use any measures
23% 22% 18%
Source: Telesperience 2013
9 Summary
Social media provides a new channel for CSPs to interact with their customers. However, taken to its natural
conclusion it also supports, in achievable steps, the necessary fundamental change to the telecoms business model
and processes that the industry has long talked about delivering. This is because it enables the CSP to focus what it
does around the needs of the customer by better engaging with customers; it can glean insights, suggestions and
complaints from customers which it can use to improve its performance; and it can leverage a loyal customer base to
become better at selling more of what the customer wants, in a way the customer wants it.
CSPs cannot just implement social technology and expect to gain the maximum benefit from it. They need to
embrace what it delivers as an integral part of the way they do business, since maximising the value requires CSPs to
really focus on their customers and not just on their networks – delivering true customer-centricity.
Social technology itself is showing rapid evolution from providing operational efficiency to being an integral
building block in a different type of customer experience and an enabler of future commercial success. Importantly,
CSPs should note that social technology is not just important for the B2C side of the business, but also to engage
with enterprise customers and SMEs.

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10 Research methodology
This research programme uses a technique which is sometimes called “the expert panel” or “expert sample”. In
other words we sought to locate a relatively small number of highly qualified and senior staff who had the
knowledge and experience to answer the questions we were researching, and who could also represent the views of
their peers.
The research was focused on delivering a picture of the current status of social technology adoption within the
global CSP market, as well as future goals and investment plans. Thus we sought to locate and speak to those staff
within CSPs who are currently responsible for supporting, or who substantially influence, the company’s social
technology or social CRM strategy. The trends shown here are based on a global sample, with regional breakdowns
provided where indicated.
In this programme we spoke to 41 senior managers (CXO, VP and Director level staff) from communications
service providers worldwide. Figure 21 provides a breakdown of the operators represented in this sample by size of
subscriber base and by region of operation. It should be noted that some of the smaller CSPs in this sample were
parts of larger groups. In terms of operator type, 44% were multi-service operators (MSOs), 32% were
mobile/wireless providers, 20% were fixed/wireline/fiber providers, and the remaining 4% MVNOs and WiMaX
operators.
Figure 21 Regions and size of CSPs in research sample
Europe
32%
North America
27%
APAC
22%
MEA
10%
CALA
10%
Total sample:
41 CSPs
Up to 5 million
39%
5 to 10 million
19%
10 to 20 million
15%
More than
20 million
27%
Total sample:
41 CSPs
Source: Telesperience 2013

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About the author
Teresa Cottam is the Founder and Chief Strategist at Telesperience, an independent telecoms industry analyst firm.
She has more than 19 years’ experience in the industry and was previously an Associate Principal Analyst with UK-
based telecoms consultancy Analysys Mason. Before that she headed up Research and Publications at Chorleywood
Consulting, a specialist BSSOSS consultancy which was acquired by Informa Telecoms and Media. Prior to this she
was Managing Editor at industry analysts Ovum. Teresa has authored numerous influential reports and trends
papers during her career, is a regular speaker and chair at telecoms events, and is a judge at the Global Mobile
Awards presented at Mobile World Congress. Teresa is passionate about helping CSPs optimise the value of their
software and data, and strongly believes they will play an increasingly important role in helping CSPs differentiate
their offering, operate profitably, and attract and retain customers.
You can follow Teresa on Twitter at @teresacottam and can connect with her at www.telesperience.com
About Telesperience
Telesperience is a UK headquartered telecoms analyst firm focused on how software and data helps
communications service providers improve their operational efficiency, commercial agility and the customer
experience they deliver. We consider where the problems lie with legacy technology, and how companies can
transition to provide a more positive telesperience for their customers and a more profitable business for
themselves.
For more information about Telesperience see www.telesperience.com, check out our blog at
www.microsperience.com or visit our B2B wiki at www.wikisperience.com.
About Lithium
Lithium makes social software that powers the social customer experience. We help brands unlock the passion of
their customers to build brand advocacy, drive sales, reduce service costs and accelerate innovation. Our
software helps companies build vibrant online communities, connect them to public social networks, and infuse
social conversations across every digital touch point.