Smartphones – A game changer in expectations of customer experience

Smartphones – A game changer in expectations of customer experience

Turki Alqarefah Zain Group (Kuwait) Stephen Bowker AIRCOM International

Wednesday, 15 May 2013 12:00 - 12:30 pm

Presenters

Turki Alqarefah RAN Manager at Zain Zain Group - Kuwait https://www.kw.zain.com/

Steve Bowker Chief Technology Officer AIRCOM International https://www.aircominternational.com/ Email: [email protected] Twitter: @AIRCOM_CTO @STEPHENBOWKER

Zain has the largest share of the Kuwait market, offering 2G/3G and LTE services. It has high Smartphone penetration with customers actively using native Value Added Services and OTT apps

Changing

Landscape

www.tmforum.org/mw13

Join the conversation! Tweet #mwnice and follow @tmforum.org

Smartphone

Customer Experience

English Premier League TV on Zain Smartphones

Zain Pass for Worldwide Wi-Fi

iPhone app: advanced missed call alerting, automatic answering and travel features for roaming internationally

Zain support advanced services and applications for their Smartphone Community Mobile TV providing local channels and English

Premier League Soccer

Advanced value added services

Smartphone applications to address the changing landscape of a Communications Service Provider

Engaged AIRCOM International in mid-2012 to optimise experience received by their users Completed project in 8 weeks

Smartphone end-user experience improved

Network resources used more efficiently

CASE STUDY FOLLOWS….



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Case Study: Optimising the Smartphone Experience

Optimising experience for Zain’s Smartphones users in Kuwait was a 3-step process

Operator benchmark

3G RAN audit Smartphone Experience

Optimisation

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Case Study: Optimising the Smartphone Experience

Experience monitoring points used during Zain

Operator Benchmarking/Smartphone optimisation

Extract from TMForum Technical Report: Managing the Quality of Customer Experience (TR148)

Operator Benchmarking End Device Probes Smartphone optimisation Passive Probes mostly focussed on Radio Access

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Case Study: Operator benchmarking

Countrywide benchmark of 3 Kuwait operators, including within maritime waters

Coverage Voice quality

Call drop rate

Accessibility

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Case Study: Smartphone Experience Optimisation

Smartphone’s dominate the demand on network resources specifically for Data Sessions (PS)

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Subscriber’s Smartphone distribution by phone model. Large % of network users were included

Note: Trace data was from mid-2012 reflecting Smartphones available at that time

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Smartphone user experience was enhanced significantly following optimisation

Paging success

+92%

Signalling load

-36%

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Challenges in a Smartphone World to provide the “optimal user experience”

Providing the “right” balance between Network Resource Utilisation and the User Experience Signalling/Processing vs. Battery Life Quality of Experience based on policy control

Optimising “multi-RAB” sessions - simultaneous voice and data Drive home with Tom Tom “Live” Traffic and talk

on the phone at the same time (vs. 2G voice only) Address the higher dropped call rates of Multi-RAB

(typically ~5-7%) vs. Data (typically ~2%) and voice (typically ~0.3-0.5%)

Handle massive peaks in data volumes Large groups of users on commuter trains Viral effect of social media on demand

Note: Challenges and metrics presented here are examples from AIRCOM‟s global experiences not the Zain case study

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Smartphone Receiver Sensitivity Smartphones can have lower sensitivity compared with traditional

feature phones, typically anything from 3-10dB worse Quality of Experience varies depending on handset type (e.g. voice

quality can be impacted significantly in areas of marginal coverage)

Technology Factors In the UK and other markets early iPhone 5 software “camped-on” to

LTE networks being tested showing “No Service” in areas where they had a valid subscription in good coverage 2G/3G

Multi-tasking sometimes keeps smartphones too busy so they miss paging for mobile terminated calls or sessions

LTE voice initially supported by Circuit Switched fall-back (CSFB) Dual Carrier HSPA performance when moving to cells with single carriers Phones that don‟t support new 3GPP features (e.g. Release 8 introduced

Network Controlled Fast Dormancy)

Challenges in a Smartphone World Different Devices = Different Experience

Note: Challenges and metrics presented here are examples from AIRCOM‟s global experiences not the Zain case study

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How to Monitor Customer Experience accurately with KQIs

When is a “Dropped” Call not a “Dropped Call”?

When can the experience improve, yet KPIs and their associated KQIs look worse?

Mobile Operators need to add Engineering Intelligence to their Business Intelligence Extract from TMForum

Guidebook: Wireless Service Measurement Handbook (GB923)

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Provide a “Voice to the Customer” Capture your customer’s experiences on a web portal and/or device agent

Capture and resolve

customer frustration

Differentiate with network

coverage

Enhance customer quality of

experience

Reduce call centre load

Provides Direct

Engineering Feedback of Resolution

Log issue Cloud database

Monitor, visualise, analyse

Feedback via customer preferred channel

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Focus your network improvement Optimise customer experience with Self-Organising Network capabilities

Understand the

experiences of your

customers

Correlate network and

customer data

Analyse multiple data sources not

just OSS stats

Utilise algorithms to

do the „number

crunching‟

Prioritise network

optimisation that affects

VIP customers

Customer info (ARPU, VIP?)

Handset data (Usage, performance)

Network data (stats, KPI‟s)

Collect & store

Correlate & analyse

Prioritise & decide

Validate & Implement

Database Decision engine

Configuration Analytics engine

Understanding and managing a

customer’s experience in a world of

Smartphones is like Formula 1 Racing

A team builds solutions, and needs to analyse & correlate data from everywhere to succeed!

INDEPENDENT SOFTWARE AND SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVED NETWORK PERFORMANCE

Thank You