What Is Telecom Customer Journey Orchestration?

Effective communication is essential for a positive customer experience, especially when there’s a problem. When your internet service is out, you want to hear from your telecom provider—and you want status updates sent via text message (something that is still working). When you call to find out what’s going on, you don’t want to hear an interactive voice response (IVR) message that says, “Did you know you can now do everything online?” Not today, you can’t. And you don’t want the customer service representative to suggest that you go online for status updates. That is just rubbing salt in the wound.

Telecom operators excel at connecting people via smart phones, computers and other devices, but they don’t always do a good enough job connecting with people. Telecom lags behind other industries in customer satisfaction, with both internet service and subscription TV service at the bottom of the rankings by industry. 

To improve communication and customer satisfaction, telecom businesses need a system that delivers coordinated, personalized messages when customers need them. That’s where customer journey orchestration comes in.

What Is Telecom Customer Journey Orchestration?

Customer journey orchestration refers to using real-time data at the individual customer level to analyze current behavior, predict future behavior, and adjust the journey in the moment to help customers accomplish a specific task (e.g., schedule a service appointment or upgrade their data plan).

Customer journey orchestration uncovers the context of customer interactions and makes real time decisions about the next best action, guiding customers toward their desired outcome through personalized communications.

Customer journey orchestration:

Delivers a personalized experience that makes it easier for customers to achieve the desired outcome. Journey orchestration provides a layer above the communication channels themselves, to organize customer conversations on a personalized level. A customer profile provides real-time information about the customer’s needs (based on data usage history) and preferences (such as communication channel). This knowledge allows CSPs to engage customers at the right time, on their terms. For example, the decisioning system sends an offer via text message (the preferred channel) for an upgraded data plan—before the customer exceeds the data allowance and incurs overage charges.

Avoids sending the wrong messages. Customer journey orchestration acts like an air traffic controller, coordinating communications so they don’t collide with each other. For example, the system suppresses conflicting communications during a support journey. Someone who is currently complaining about a service outage or unexpectedly high bill isn’t likely to respond favorably to a “renew your contract now” email. 

Enhances customer satisfaction and loyalty. Customer journey orchestration eliminates some of the top churn drivers for telecom customers:

• Broken omni channel flows (e.g., being transferred between departments, having to call more than once, repeating themselves multiple times when transferred between agents). Customer journey orchestration powers intent-based call routing that directs callers to the correct agent, reducing transfers and the need to repeat themselves.
• Poor agent service. Customer journey orchestration powers proactive guidance for contact center agents, providing the information they need to assist customers quickly and accurately, preventing the need to call again.
• Wasting customer time (e.g., resolving a problem took too long, waited too long for a service technician to arrive). Notifying customers that a technician is delayed, and allowing them to reschedule, avoids wasting their time.  

Customer Journey Mapping vs. Orchestration

Customer journey mapping means creating a visual representation of every action a fictitious prospect or customer (a persona) takes when interacting with your business to accomplish a specific task (job to be done). For example, to resolve a problem with their router, the customer may visit the troubleshooting page on your website, engage with a chatbot, and then call customer service to schedule a service appointment.  

Outlining the journey steps helps you understand what customers may experience on a particular journey and what they want and need. A telecom customer journey map reveals common friction points and bottlenecks that need to be addressed. If the chatbot conversation isn’t helpful and doesn’t guide customers to schedule the service appointment using a self-service channel (website or mobile app), the customer will call the contact center. Using this insight, you can take steps to improve the chatbot experience.

Customer journey orchestration means coordinating a real customer’s experiences across the various channels (website, chatbot, phone, email, SMS) to meet that customer’s needs. A customer journey orchestration engine delivers the right messages at the right time to help the customer accomplish the desired task (e.g., fix the router) quickly and efficiently.

What Is a Journey Orchestration Engine and Why Do You Need One?

A journey orchestration “engine” is an independent software platform that integrates with delivery solutions, such as email or SMS delivery systems. A journey orchestration engine uses a variety of technological tools (including journey analytics) to access real-time, individual consumer data, enabling journey discovery (the evaluation of each customer’s unique attitudes and behaviors as they interact with your brand). That information is then used for journey decisioning (predicting future behavior and adjusting the journey in real time).  

Telecom businesses use journey orchestration engines to deliver customer-centric experiences. Each customer journey is tailored to simplify interactions and quickly meet needs, prevent negative experiences, address issues promptly, and foster brand loyalty through real-time engagement and guidance.

To solve the customer’s router problem, the journey orchestration engine:

• Detects that a customer is viewing the troubleshooting web page.
• Nudges the customer to schedule a service appointment using digital channels.
• Routes the customer to the appropriate agent if they chose not to schedule an appointment using digital channels.
• Confirms the scheduled appointment with the customer and provides instructions to prepare for the appointment, via the customer’s preferred channel (SMS or email).
• Reminds the customer of the appointment date and time slot and confirms their availability or allows them to reschedule if they will not be available.
• Notifies the customer of technician delays and allows the customer to reschedule if necessary.

4 Requirements for Customer Journey Orchestration 

Customer journey maps. Customer journey maps identify the sequence of actions customers take during a particular journey. For example, to pay a bill a customer may attempt to log in to the payment portal, reset their password when they can’t remember it, view their statement, call customer service to ask why this month’s wireless bill is higher, and finally pay their bill. Mapping the bill payment journey reveals potential friction points that make it more difficult for customers to pay on time and avoid late fees.

Customer data platform. A customer data platform collects, integrates and manages customer data from various sources (e.g., customer relationship management (CRM), contact center systems, billing, browsing history). CDPs consolidate this customer data to create a unified profile for every customer that updates in real time and is accessible across systems and departments.

Customer journey analytics. Customer journey analytics tracks customer interactions with your brand across every channel and department. Journey analytics combines channel analytics with customer intent to help you understand:

• Customer behavior, preferences, needs and expectations.
• Where the journey got derailed (e.g., friction points).
• How to improve customer journeys.

Journey orchestration engine. Look for a journey orchestration platform that:

• Connects data from your current systems (CDP, CRM, customer feedback management) and makes decisions in real time regarding the best communications to send.
• Decides what messages not to send, as well as what messages to send. The best JO engine prevents sending too many—or the wrong—messages and pauses the marketing campaign when customers are engaged in service/support journeys.
• Uses journey analytics to analyze channel performance, identify pain points and track customer behaviors and patterns across channels.
• Tracks and listens to prospects and customers as they move from interaction to interaction and transition from unknown to known, and manages them as an evolving holistic profile.

Telecom Customer Journey Orchestration Made Simple with CSG Xponent Ignite  

According to the 2022 Forrester Wave: Journey Orchestration Platforms report, a customer journey orchestration platform “connects customer data and places it in the context of the customer journey, enabling real-time, relevant and personalized customer experiences.” Xponent, our industry-leading customer journey management solution, does exactly that. Xponent combines a customer data platform with journey analytics and journey orchestration to deliver personalized communications that guide customers to the next best action to accomplish their tasks. You can use your traditional campaign management software, such as Adobe Campaign, with Xponent. Xponent is the decisioning engine that coordinates sending the right messages at the right time. 

Not sure where to start?

Xponent Ignite makes it easy to get started with customer journey management and achieve quick wins. Our team will help you build a business case, identify the high-value journeys to start with (based on expected ROI), and launch easily using pre-templated, telecom-specific customer journeys.  

Speak to an expert today to start orchestrating telecom customer journeys.