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Accanto's Customer Experience Experiment Calls For Mobile Service Users

February 05, 2015

On an academic level, most of us know that the overall customer experience is one of the most important things a business can focus on. Keeping track of just what the customer thinks about the whole experience allows a business to make modifications to that experience as needed, making for a better overall experience and customers who are more likely to stay with that business. In a bid to help improve that customer experience, the folks at Accanto Systems are launching the Customer Experience Experiment, a concept that looks to help communications service providers (CSPs) get a better handle on just what those customers think of the service.


Getting in on the Customer Experience Experiment is simpler than some may think. Simply register on the Accanto website to download the iCEM Mobile application, which is also at last report available on Google Play. The app can then run either visibly on the device, or in the background, and opens up several opportunities for the user to gauge service. With the iCEM Mobile application, users can measure the availability of the network used, whether it's 4G, 3G or even 2G, as well as top mobile data speeds. It can also measure top speed rated applications, like YouTube and Spotify, and can measure the latency in the signal with Ping. Information collected is anonymized, according to reports, and only focuses on connection and traffic performance metrics, meaning that the app won't be snooping on content of the traffic.

This combination of factors, according to Accanto Systems CEO Jarkko Multanen, will work together to bring us a fuller picture of just how well services work on different providers, and ultimately, which providers do a better job than others. As Multanen put it, “By combining and analyzing real time information from the subscriber, the network, and the end user terminal, CSPs can monitor and optimize their network to create a better quality of experience for its subscribers.” Multanen also offered up one key point that's hard to deny: “...the best feedback of all comes direct from the end user.”

Indeed, it really is the best source of feedback a CSP can get. These are the people who are actively using the service, thus, the best positioned to know when it's gone wrong. What's more, these are the people who ultimately measure success; if the system isn't working the way the end users want it, the end users pull support and go to a system that's more closely aligned with said users' goals and interests. So too, accordingly, goes the revenue those end users represented. So in order for a CSP to succeed, it must offer that which the end users want, or at least the closest approximation of said desires in the market. Knowing how the end users feel about current operations, meanwhile, allows changes to be made accordingly. This is a development that Verizon has itself recently felt as it made some changes to its pricing plans and services in a bid to stem the tide of user defections.

It will be interesting to see the results of the Customer Experience Experiment, and Accanto Systems may well be about to start off a major new development in the mobile market: a development with the end user right up front.




Edited by Maurice Nagle



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