A tick for Telstra!

Whilst many organisations talk about their commitment to improving customer engagement, most don't do what they say they are going to do. Over the past year Telstra have done a lot of talking about the changes they have made to their customer engagement programs so it was great when a real situation came around to put all of that talk to the test.

If you have moved house recently, you will have come across one of Telstra's new initiatives. They have introduced as part of their Dedicated Moves Team the role of a Customer Engagement Manager (CEM). This service helps customers manage the move of their current technology services such as broadband, phone and other data services from their old home to their new home.

The CEM sits between sales and installation. They are brought in at the end of the sales process and become the liaison person until the completion of the work.

Whilst this was the first time that I had heard of this service from Telstra, this is not a new initiative in the service industry. For the many companies that are focused on a better customer experience and improving customer satisfaction, they have had a Customer Engagement Manager, also referred to as Customer Success Manager, in their teams for some time.

The person in this role does not sell, deliver or install. They are a facilitator who is the point of contact for questions, updates or complaints.  They can investigate any queries or simply provide a regular status update. Their main focus is to keep customers informed and ensure that everything is on track to meet expectations.

I recently moved homes and I experienced first hand Telstra's model. They co-ordinated the relocation of my cable broadband service to my new address keeping it under the existing contract.  

Whilst overall I would say that the service worked quite well, there is still room for improvement. 

In my case, I had a call from a Telstra technician alerting me to an issue about 2 weeks before the booked move date. It wasn't a big problem that was easily resolved and after that call I contacted the CEM who took the required action.

What I found surprising was that he didn't know anything about the issue until I told him. I felt that I was keeping him informed rather than the other way. If the CEM had called me to let me know there had been a problem but they had a plan to resolve, it would have been much more impressive.

A successful engagement model needs the CEM to be proactive in checking the status of their assigned customers' jobs so they are aware first of any potential delays, changes or problems.

In any business, you always want your management to be finding out about problems before they get to the customer. You want to be telling the customer what has happened and what you're already doing about it. Or in turn, not tell the customer at all and just fix it! 

The need to have a dedicated role for customer engagement is growing fast, especially in the technology sector, given the nature and size of IT projects. It is a positive initiative and should be considered by all types of businesses. The need is not dependent on the size of the organisation, but based more so on what services the business offers and/or how complex delivering those services may be.

Happy to say well done Telstra!