A famous quote attributed to Aristotle says, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. This can even be the definition of technology. Think about mobile communication – it requires many parts, from smartphones to digital apps. Every concrete or abstract part needs contribution from many parties – from developers to technicians and users. The result is in fact a holistic structure, and it is this structure that counts.
The same is also true for “experience”. Every industry has long been talking about customer & user experience and incorporating them into its business strategies. Yet we no longer live in an era where such experiences can be handled separately. This is an age of interconnectedness, networks, and interdependence. And experience should be considered in the same way, which takes us to the new concept of “total experience”.
What Exactly is Total Experience?
First coined by Gartner, total experience (TX) actually means combining various aspects of experience in a business environment and handling it as a whole. The goal is to create a superior shared experience among all parties and stakeholders involved in a process.
If we are talking about a product or a service, TX covers every related stakeholder from suppliers to designers, field teams, users, salespeople, etc. With a special focus on telecommunications, we can include everyone involved, such as a business partner, service provider, corporate customer, employee, end-user, financial operator, or app developer - in short, any person or party that takes part in the process. In other words, it is a holistic environment and strategy and offers great benefits to communications service providers.
What Does Total Experience Include?
Now that we know TX covers all stakeholders, let’s go a little deeper into the process and list all types of experience included in TX. However, it is important to remember that none of these experiences operates separately; they all work together in an interconnected way to create an overall experience.
5 aspects work together to generate Total experience:
• Customer experience
• User experience
• Partner experience
• Employee experience
• Multiexperience
Customer Experience (CX)
Customer experience is one of the two aspects in TX that we are most familiar with (the other one is user experience, which we cover below). Every business in every industry needs to be satisfied, happy, and content with customers to be able to make profits. Therefore, CX is all about offering customers the best means, tools, products, services, or opportunities. It is what businesses have in mind every step of the way.
For a telecommunications operator, CX means providing customers with state-of-the-art solutions, offering them seamless services, adding value to the products and services in the industry, developing innovations, etc.
At Telenity, our customers are these telecommunications operators themselves and therefore our CX goal is to equip them with solutions that will in turn improve CX for their own customers.
User Experience (UX)
The second aspect we all know and care very much about is user experience. UX is mostly about the end-users of a product or service. Ease of use, efficiency, effectiveness, availability and other qualities are covered in the aspect of user experience.
In the telecommunications industry, operators consider UX as a vital part of the services they provide to their customers. However, at Telenity, UX means offering the most efficient and easy-to-use products and services to both operators and their customers.
Partner Experience (PX)
As a relatively new aspect, partner experience is in fact closely related to the interconnected environment that we mentioned above. In today’s world, no business operates on its own. In every industry, companies work in a network of operations, the most important part of which is the partner ecosystem.
This is even more important in the telecommunications industry since all operators benefit from the services or applications of third parties and partners. Improving the agility, efficiency, and profitability of partnerships with third parties is very important for telecommunications operators, hence for Telenity.
Employee Experience (EX)
Here is a concept that businesses have not thought much about. We know that human resources departments work a lot on employee satisfaction, acquiring and retaining talents, etc. However, employee experience as a part of TX is an aspect that requires more than talent development. It is a part of a bigger system that places employees as an integral part of the experience that covers all stakeholders and aspects.
Multi-experience (MX)
Multi experience is the new name of an old topic. Remember the day we used to talk about multichannel or omnichannel? Today, MX replaces and further broadens the limits of the ways we interact with stakeholders. From apps to augmented reality and wearable technologies, MX is an aspect that is focused on contacting customers, providers, suppliers, users, etc. via various touchpoints and making sure that it contributes to the overall experience.
Benefits of Total Experience
In an industry evolving as rapidly as telecommunications, it is important to always be on board and implement the latest developments without losing time. And to be able to do that, telecom companies should understand not only the details and definitions of these developments but also the benefits they offer. So, before reaching an overall conclusion on TX, let’s summarize the benefits of the individual aspects mentioned above.
Benefits of CX for a telecom operator:
• Customers know exactly what services they purchase
• Customers feel safe against fraud and have safe access to products
• Operators can identify the best-personalized content and services for customers
• Operations of third-party content and service providers are more transparent
• Customer transactions are based upon consent so that customers can terminate subscriptions anytime
Benefits of UX for a telecom operator:
• Operators can benefit from cloud-based, agile interactions with third parties
• Their customers have access to user-friendly products, solutions, and services
• Service quality is improved
• All touchpoints of UX are managed centrally, thus offering seamless interaction
Benefits of PX for a telecom operator:
• Interaction between operator and partners is reinforced
• Services or products by partners have launched more rapidly thanks to pre-defined integration needs
• Shortened service launches also mean faster monetization
• Reconciliation of payments between operator and partner is performed more quickly
Benefits of EX for a telecom operator:
• There is greater room for skill development
• Talent acquisition and retention is improved
• A productive environment is created for new ideas and projects
• Operational workload of employees is reduced
Benefits of MX for a telecom operator:
• Diversity of touchpoints is increased
• Operators can go beyond channel-based sales models
• Digital services can be managed centrally
In light of all such benefits, we can easily say that the overall benefit of TX is increased efficiency and a greater competitive edge.
How to Provide Total Experience in the Age of Digitalization?
TX is both an accelerator and a result of digitalization, as it is inherently a part of the digital age. Therefore, here are two questions to consider carefully: What is TX management and how can a telecommunications company provide TX in the age of digitalization?
The answer to both questions obviously lies within the domain of technology. TX and digital technologies support and complement each other. This is the reason why telecom operators need a more holistic approach to their digital strategies. The new strategy should include cloud-based, state-of-the-art, virtualized, and personalized TX and digitalization solutions. So, the first step is migration to the cloud (if not already migrated), to be followed by an overall control and test of the corporate systems and new integrations.
Once all is set, a telecom operator is ready to expand its horizon in the digital era with a TX-focused strategy.
How to Take Full Benefits of TX with Digital Service Platforms?
Telenity Digital Service Platform (DSP) has long been offered to telecommunications operators all around the world as a next-generation platform that focuses on the digital service capabilities of operators and their third parties. Therefore, TX may be a new concept, but it is not new to Telenity DSP.
We have already been supporting operators in improving their CX and UX through DSP solutions such as Fraud Management, Service Management, Service Subscription Management, Content, and Consent Management. And in terms of MX, Telenity DSP already enables operators to use multiple touchpoints and environments to create a multichannel experience for its customers.
Telenity Partner Management solution of DSP, on the other hand, not only covers the PX part of the total experience but also directly supports operators and partners in monetizing their products and services. As Telenity DSP logs all transactions and processes them automatically, the launch, collection, and reconciliation of services by third parties are performed rapidly.
And finally, when it comes to EX, Telenity DSP supports telecom operators with digital tools and services to reduce employee workload. Through automated processes, employees have more time to focus on the core business and KPIs, which in turn improves EX.
To sum it up, telecom operators and their partners can manage their business more efficiently, monetize products and services more rapidly, and control their finances more thoroughly thanks to Telenity DSP.
Plus, DSP offers operators flexibility in product launches. In a world where only 500 out of 5,000 business ideas are implemented and only 5 of them succeed, telecom operators need the capability to try faster and fail faster until success is achieved. This is what Telenity DSP offers!
The bottom line: Experience is no longer considered in silos. In a challenging and competitive environment such as telecommunications, covering all sorts of experiences within TX is what matters. No business can afford to leave an aspect of experience out of its scope. TX requires full focus and an integrated approach, and Telenity DSP is the perfect platform to reach that goal.
