Detecon Opinion Paper Customer Experience Management. Managing Customer Experience Profitably

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Customer Experience Management

Managing Customer Experience Profitably

2009 / 07


Opinion Paper 1 Detecon International GmbH

Table of Contents

1 Executive Summary.............................................................................................2 2 The Special Significance of Customer Experience Management (CEM) ...........3 3 What Is Customer Experience Management?.....................................................4

3.1 The “Fundamentals” of Customer Experience Management.......................4 3.2 Fields of Action in Customer Experience Management...............................5 3.3 Customer Experience Management’s Place in the CRM Framework.........7

4 The Challenge: Exciting Customers and Making Experiences Profitable...........8 4.1 Objectives of Customer Experience Management ......................................8 4.2 Success Factors for Customer Experience Management ...........................9

5 Conclusion and Outlook ....................................................................................13 6 Recommended Reading....................................................................................14 7 The Authors .......................................................................................................15 8 The Company ....................................................................................................16



1 Executive Summary

What is to be done when the previous unique selling point of the customer orientation turns into a simple “must have” among competitors? What if the necessity to initiate measures to secure the company’s existence suddenly becomes more than just urgent owing to an international economic crisis? Detecon has an answer to these questions within the framework of observation of a newer development: customer experience management (CEM).

Successful companies build up strong emotional ties between their customers and their products or services. This emotional relationship is based on the creation of an authentic customer experience which has a stimulating effect on the senses and differentiates the company from its competitors. The customer experiences described above are enormously significant, especially on highly competitive, saturated markets such as those in the telecommunications industry, financial services, or the automotive industry.

Positive customer experiences contribute to binding customers emotionally to a product or brand and to realizing a direct increase in sales. Moreover, loyal customers trigger an indirect effect on sales because their enthusiasm and word-of-mouth recommendations for the company, being specific and consistent actions, contribute to the polish on a company’s image. The unassailable uniqueness of such loyalty gives rise to competitive advantages which hold over the middle and long term and do not evaporate after a short time.

This is why today’s decision-makers see customer experience management (CEM) as a highly promising approach to set themselves apart from the competition by specifically creating positive experiences for the customers. Customer experience management takes the customers’ viewpoints and their expectations as its starting point, complementing customer relationship management (CRM) which regards the company’s customer-related functions from a standpoint specific to the company.

But the CEM concept does not focus alone on the creation of emotional customer experiences. In Detecon’s opinion, the possibility to quantify CEM measures in the form of the ROI or shareholder values is first and foremost the essential characteristic which turns CEM into a powerful tool for securing sustained competitive advantages.



2 The Special Significance of Customer Experience Management (CEM)

In times of commoditization, customers’ perception of differentiation by means of product characteristics or similar qualities becomes increasingly blurred and establishing clear lines of demarcation becomes more and more difficult. That is why customer experience management focuses on the differences between customers’ expectations and what they ultimately experience from their perspective.

Positive experiences with products or services raise the value of the offered products for the customers and increase their appreciation for the company offering them, so they have a decisive effect on shaping brand preference. By deliberately creating convincing experiences, companies can exploit sales potential with new customers and realize increased sales with regular customers whose loyalty has been permanently secured. However, this requires employment of emotional factors to create customer loyalty which go beyond objectively convincing product, service, and sales performance. The objective of customer experience management (CEM) is to create customer loyalty on an emotional basis – initially with solid, basic performance, then through distinct and surprising experiences going beyond the fundamentals which exceed customers’ expectations. Customer experience management measures are implemented through the systematic shaping of the interaction between company and customers at all points of contact. These measures represent an enhancement of previously existing CRM activities by adding CEM activities which generate experiences and emotions from the customer perspective.

Customer experience management leads to a greater sense of identification with the company, directly influencing sales through greater readiness to purchase, intensity of use, and rising cross-buying and up-buying willingness and indirectly influencing sales through word-of-mouth activities which are difficult to measure and consequently often undervalued.

The growing significance of CEM in recent years can be described by referring to a panel study of 287 managers in the USA: in 2007, 38% of the respondents attributed a critical role in corporate strategy to customer experience management, but in 2008 this proportion had risen sharply to 64%. Forrester has confirmed that this trend will continue in 2009: in the meantime, 89% of the surveyed company representatives identify CEM as an important measure for achieving differentiation over the next three years.

These findings have prompted Detecon to take a closer look at the contents and concepts of customer experience management and to give interested decision-makers and experts in companies insights into the goals, characteristics, and challenges of CEM approaches.



3 What Is Customer Experience Management?

3.1 The “Fundamentals” of Customer Experience Management

Experience

The “E” in CEM stands for “experience” in two senses. On the one hand, it refers to the specific encounter every customer has when he or she receives or buys a product, makes use of a service, or otherwise comes into contact with the company, e.g., when requiring servicing. But it also goes beyond this to encompass the history of encounters as a whole which the customer uses as a basis for assessing the specific encounter.

Customer experience management concentrates on the emotional, but also irrational, behavior of consumers and the resulting positive experience of customers when buying and using a product/service as well as all of the related interactions within the scope of the customer relationship. It must be kept in mind here that the customers’ experience does not translate into a direct road to more sales for the company; however, the creation of an individual and consequently unique experience for customers can bind them long-term to the company and bring about additional recommendation effects.

Positive and personal experience generally has a holistic effect on customers and consequently directly on their loyalty with respect to the company or brand. This is becoming more and more important, above all on markets in which the differentiation by means of product core properties is becoming increasingly difficult or is no longer even perceived by customers because of the commodity character of a product.

Conscious interaction with customers

If the customers’ buying experience is to be shaped and exploited long-term for the company, there must be “conscious” interaction with customers who subsequently have a positive association of the interaction with the company.

So companies must identify the expectations customers have and at what point in time these expectations should be fulfilled within the scope of the interactions.

Contact frequency plays an interesting role in shaping the customer experience. On the one hand, companies build up a high-quality customer information base for individual services when there is regular contact; on the other hand, the customer experience at the particular “moment of truth” is ultimately decisive – the experience of a large number of positive encounters related to “trivial contacts” with the company can be wiped out by one bad experience at the “moment of truth”.

„Moments of Truth“

“Moments of truth” refer to those moments and situations in which customers turn to a company concerning a matter which is great importance for them.

Typical examples: complaints, questions about inconsistent offers via various distribution channels, the provision of a new product requiring explanation, or a malfunction which needs to be corrected on location.

If not handled properly, such critical customer contacts can have a detrimental effect on customer loyalty or even lead to termination by the customer.



From soft asset to quantifiable ROI

Customer experience management is supposed to identify the delta between customer expectations and experience and close this gap by initiating the appropriate measures to satisfy emotional customer needs. As a rule, there is no quantifiable basis for making decisions concerning the effort required to achieve this.

Detecon regards the quantifying of the emotional customer experience, which has previously been considered only as a soft asset, as well as the economically reasonable utilization and management of the combination of a minimal customer experience to avoid negative impacts and the development of extraordinary experiences, especially in the high customer value segments, to be top-priority challenge which companies must face in the future.

3.2 Fields of Action in Customer Experience Management

Customer experience management deals with the systematic substance of interactions so that customers are excited by positive experiences and bond emotionally to the company and its products long-term.

There is a need for action at several different levels so that a comprehensive experience strategy can be defined and implemented within the framework of customer experience management.

1) Analysis of the customer group – and of every single customer to the extent possible: What needs, desires, expectations, and intentions does the customer have?

2) Analysis of customer perception: What interaction experiences with the company are significant for the customers’ perception, and by what encounters can these experiences be defined (e.g., moments of truth)?

3) Analysis of customer interaction: How should regular interaction cycles and processes between customers and company be designed to create positive and emotional customer experiences?

4) CEM implementation fields: A suitable CEM strategy must be implemented in the organizational units which are close to the customer. In particular, the personnel which have regular contact with customers must be thoroughly trained, and the IT systems necessary for support must be set up.

Soft assets

Soft assets – In comparison with “hard” values such as company turnover, revenue per customer, or customer value, “soft assets” are difficult to quantify because they are intangible.

Soft assets include such aspects as the value of a brand or the return on investment (ROI) of an emotional customer relationship.



The starting points for customer experience management can be described on the basis of the following value chain:

Customer Experience Value Chain

ProductDevelopment Marketing Ease of

BuyingService

ActivationServiceUsage

ServiceChange

CustomerService

Billing &Collection

ProductDevelopment Marketing Ease of

BuyingService

ActivationServiceUsage

ServiceChange

CustomerService

Billing &Collection

Figure 1: Customer Experience Value Chain

A CEM concept has its starting point in the product or service development phase in which the company’s performance for the customers’ buying experience is designed. Examples of this are the sound design in the automotive industry or the usefulness tests of software and technical devices. Since many industries already make use of customer experience management during this phase, few, if any, competitive advantages will be created here.

So the utilization of CEM measures in marketing and in sales and service becomes all the more attractive. In this case, customer experience management consciously makes a promise concerning performance within the context of the sales-oriented communications (e.g., advertising, telemarketing) and branding.

For the buying phase, customer experience management designs interaction points such as shops which fulfill functional customer expectations concerning a purchase and, going beyond this, convey an emotional shopping experience consistent with the brand.

For the service phase, CEM identifies critical interaction points with customers, determines the performance expected and perceived by customers, and closes any gaps which are found, taking into account costs and quantified benefits (additional turnover, customer value, quantified value of word of mouth).

In summary, customer experience management can be understood as a strategic and procedural instrument for the shaping of buying experiences for customers through interactions: a brand is “charged” by positive customer experiences, and it seeks to create a long-term, emotional bond between customer and company. Rather than simply being a user, customers should identify with the product, service, or company (e.g., iPhone, Red Bull, Starbucks, VW GTI, Ritz-Carlton).

The perception of the company’s performance by customers plays the dominant role here. A combination of the basic functions of a product or service with additional individual, even unexpected services heightens the branding awareness and promotes identification, i.e., the customers’ emotional bond.



3.3 Customer Experience Management’s Place in the CRM Framework

Definitions of customer relationship management (CRM) in technical literature are many and varied. According to dominant fundamental understanding, CRM is a strategic management approach applied throughout the company and can also be understood as a system for management of customer relationships. As a rule, CRM measures are developed from the company’s perspective of the customer. The emphasis is frequently on functional measures and the fulfillment of rational expectations. Examples are the creation of a customer contact history or the fulfillment and realization of requests submitted by customers to customer service in the call center.

Customer experience management, on the other hand, takes the customers’ standpoint and should, in cross-channel dialog, exceed their own expectations. Moreover, CEM employs emotional and unexpected, positive experiences to generate a “wow” effect for customers. If the company succeeds in creating this effect, above all at the moments which are so important to the customers, its chances of securing the customers’ long-term loyalty to the company increase, creating additional opportunities to shape the customer relationship with the goal of greater profits and sustained exploitation.

Detecon sees customer experience management as a further development and therefore enhancement of the CRM which has previously always been handled functionally and from the company’s perspective. In addition, Detecon will in future be placing greater emphasis on customers’ emotional bonding, which has in the past been rather neglected, within the context of CEM and promote more intensely the related customer loyalty by specifically managing experiences within the scope of the CEM value chain described in Chapter 3.2.

CEM definitely offers an important, frequently neglected complement to established CRM processes and strategies.



4 The Challenge: Exciting Customers and Making Experiences Profitable

4.1 Objectives of Customer Experience Management

In Detecon’s opinion, strategic CEM concepts in operationalized measures must be translated into emotional customer loyalty in consideration of the fundamentals of customer experience management.

The intended experiences for specific customer groups must be carefully designed with respect to positive perception and association with the company. Yet the necessity to subject these measures to a critical cost-benefit analysis must not be neglected: the costs of the planned measures must be compared with the expected effect of increase in turnover. This is the only way the “return on CEM investment” can be determined.

The chain of effects familiar from customer satisfaction research clearly shows the path of development from “expectations exceeded” to the increase in “customer value/customer equity”:

Customer Value /Shareholder Value

Financial Excellence:ARPU Churn Market Share Pos. Word of Mouth Brand Equity


Experiences

Expectations

SatisfactionLoyalty

Costs

Figure 2: CEM Chain of Effects

CEM identifies the customers’ expectations from the product, service, and interaction with the company in the first step. The customers’ perspective is systematically taken and the interaction is evaluated from their viewpoint – not from the company’s.

The second step is of fundamental importance. The basic performance, characteristics, and functions of services or products must meet the previously determined expectations of the customers (e.g., waiting times, functions and useful life of a technical device). This “Fix the Basics” is the fundamental basis for CEM in the relevant business transactions. Decorative touches such as special friendliness, additional services, and communicative extras will not be able to compensate in the customers’ perception for a serious deficit in the basic performance. On the contrary, there is even a risk that customers will question whether the company has its priorities straight.



It will be possible to fulfill an adequate condition in the third step solely on the basis of this pragmatically functional component in the sense of a CEM hygienic factor: the aim is to create special (buying) experiences which satisfy emotional needs (e.g., picking up the new car right from the factory). The expression “wow” effect is often used to describe unexpected over-fulfillment in an emotional dimension.

If a product or service performs its function while simultaneously over-fulfilling customers’ expectations on an emotional level through experiences (which are difficult for others to imitate in comparison with technical properties), the customers will be satisfied and probably loyal. Influencing behavior like this to strengthen customers’ bonds to the company is the primary motive behind every CEM activity because customers’ buying behavior directly affects key indicators such as ARPU (average revenue per user), churn quotas, market shares, and market values and increases corporate value as a consequence of rising customer lifetime values.

The costs for measures to increase customer loyalty, which are by no means negligible, have been given little attention in the CEM discussion to date. However, the rise in customer and corporate value which is being sought here will be achieved only if the positive turnover effects (profit margins) exceed the costs of the concrete measures.

The commercial effects of the measures creating the experience are especially difficult to specify beforehand. CEM realistically regards customers as beings who think irrationally (as well) and act emotionally, meaning that there are limits to correctly anticipating their behavior. This represents a special conceptual challenge in designing the measures and is a massive obstacle to estimating the adjusted payment surpluses which will come from the customers’ additional purchases in the future.

So a company must always ask itself these questions:

1. What experiences of the customers have a critical effect on their bond to our company?

2. How do these experiences influence our current and future relationships to these customers?

4.2 Success Factors for Customer Experience Management

Turning the CEM idea into reality involves a series of challenges. It has been possible to identify success factors for customer experience management on the basis of initial everyday practice in the implementation of CEM concepts:

See profitable measures through the customers’ glasses – and realize them under the existing circumstances!

The first step is to take stock of the quantified positive and negative effects of current customer experience on customer satisfaction, loyalty, turnover, and costs. Understanding the customers’ perspective (especially with the aid of customer surveys) during the analysis phase is an elementary success factor for all CEM concepts. This is the perspective from which profitable measures must be defined which can then be implemented in the existing organizational framework.



Theoreticians like to demand a radical change in process, organizational, and IT structures to improve customer orientation. But actual practice shows that customer-centric concepts more than rarely come to grief in trying to meet such an ambitious goal (cf. Q7 European Delphi Study 2007).

Let experiences have an effect consistently and individually for each customer at several levels!

Successful CEM concepts address customers at six different levels, as is shown by a survey of a total of 2386 customers of 12 companies which are especially successful internationally (cf. Q6 European Management Journal 2007):

1. The sensory level is reached by engaging the five senses (seeing, hearing, feeling,

smelling, tasting). Especially successful products (e.g., Pringles, Starbucks, Swarovski) do not address all of the senses with the same intensity; instead, they concentrate on specific sensors as a way of creating the special experience.

2. The pragmatic level refers to the generation of an experience through fundamental usability, user friendliness, and fulfillment of purpose while making minimal cognitive demands (e.g., iPod, Aldi, McDonald’s).

3. The emotional level covers the address of the emotional system by creating moods and feelings (e.g., Disney, Allianz Versicherung – hopefully insured by Allianz).

4. The cognitive level creates an experience through intellectual challenges, e.g., creativity and problem-solving behavior (e.g., Lego, DIY markets).

5. The lifestyle level promotes an experience through the customers’ identification with the values communicated by a product or service (e.g., Bionade, Hotel Adlon).

6. At the rational level, the experience is sought through consumption within the framework of a community. The product communicates belonging to a group, creating a social identity (e.g., FC Bayern Munich, Harley Davidson Community, World of Warcraft).

These examples demonstrate that successful products and services are all equally intense, but that they create a unique experience profile appropriate to their specific product/service characteristics by varying the intensity of the experience at the various levels. So there is no such thing as an ideal profile or a general formula for success.

However, consistency among the “experience messages” conveyed in the interaction chain and with the corporate image which is sought is fundamentally necessary. So when offering insurance policies, the short-term emotions which are triggered (e.g., fear) should correspond to the long-term values (e.g., conservatism, security) which are being conveyed. Additionally addressing the cognitive level, e.g., through overly complex presentation of insurance products, does not create any additional experience character and even counteracts the security experience.



Functionality as compulsories, experience as free-style!

Best practice products in CEM are characterized by a balance of experience value and functional value. The functionality expected by the customers is a hygienic factor, i.e., an absolute “must” for a positive interaction experience. In other words: in the long term, even customer experience management cannot sell a bad product any better.

Utilize customer experience management specifically to the segment!

First of all, a value-oriented customer segmentation is necessary to focus CEM initially on the company’s most important customer groups. Before an outstanding “customer experience” can be created, the needs of the customer to be addressed must be homogeneous and known. If customer experience management is to benefit pre-defined customer segments, they must be categorized according to a value-oriented as well as need-oriented discrimination system to ensure that the needs of the customers within any given segment are homogeneous.

Concentrate CEM on the most important customer interactions!

Besides identifying the most important (groups of) customers, customer experience management concentrates on the interactions which are dearest to the customers. Active management of the “moments of truth” is appreciated most by customers (cf. Q14 Carlzon 1987). The goal, following the creation of a positive basic experience for all customer interactions, is to concentrate the company’s resources on critical interactions. A major prerequisite here is the identification of these special moments in the relationships between customers and company (cf. Chapt. 3.2).

Improve CEM long-term and continuously!

Customer experience management which is successful in the long run learns from its mistakes and lives the classical continuous improvement process (CIP). Best practice CEM creates mechanisms to collect and analyze the results of the customer interaction continuously so that improvements can be derived from them and implemented.

If customer experience management is to be established effectively and permanently, the positive perception of the company and its performance by customers must be secured long term, even for the continuing inflation in demands which is equally inevitable: in the long run, of course, positive experiences will also cause expectations to rise.

Guarantee consistency throughout the company!

Customer experience management must see products and the related services as a whole and manage them in integrated form (“service infusion”) so that the consistency of the customers’ experience is guaranteed. This is a substantial challenge, especially for large companies. They are the ones who must coordinate this experience across various product groups, disparate functional units, and diversified contact channels, perhaps even across national borders.



According to a recent survey, US manager see the greatest hurdle for improvements in customer experience in the lack of internal cooperation and coordination. That is why they demand the following three measures as the top CEM priorities for 2009 (Q9 Burns 2008, p. 3; Q11 Temkin 2008, p. 2):

1. Attention of top management to customer experience management

2. Establishment of a dedicated customer experience executive committee

3. Development of a crossover customer experience strategy (which does not exist today in 56% of the cases)

But leave breathing room!

Successful companies integrate customers into the value-added process, allowing the required space for both their need for self-determination and their desire for the chance to choose their own way. The aim of their strategy is to avoid monotonous consistency and dictatorial predetermination because this provokes an emotional reaction from consumers.

The example of a negotiating guideline for sales or service purposes clearly shows how standardized consistency and individual care compete against each other. They must be brought together in intelligent balance.

An answer script for a specific problem or a highly standardized negotiating guideline for the sales agents broadly assures consistent suggestions for solutions with respect to the customers. But as soon as the customer’s requests deviate from the standard case, the agent must be put in a position of being able, of wanting, and of being permitted to act according to the specific circumstances. Ultimately, a balanced degree of freedom for employees is the key to creating convincing experiences: through the combination of a consistent message with individual tonality and detailing by appropriately trained employees instead of negotiating guidelines read by a robot.

The final objective is to find a balance between individualization and standardization. This is why service options (e.g., option lists for automobiles or rate schedules for mobile services) should be constructed so that the product/service properties relevant for the customers are variable while the other (secondary) properties are standardized and stipulated by the company.

Instead of seeking the general “ultra-simplification” of products demanded by Forrester, the CEM approach speaks in favor of selective simplification which leaves both customers and employees breathing room at certain points for individual customer experiences. These points must be identified and consciously shaped.



5 Conclusion and Outlook

Pro-active companies are paying more heed to their customers than ever before. The goal here is emotional, sustained customer loyalty, whereby another important aspect, namely, increasing the profitability of every single customer, is also kept in the sightline. Such measures must be intensified above all in economically critical times because many customers, especially in such times, maintain their constantly high expectations for comfortable services and comprehensive care from companies because they assume, and rightly so, that in economically difficult times every customer counts.

This is why customer experience management concepts are generally growing in importance, especially on saturated markets such as telecommunications, financial services, or the automotive industry. Customer experience management can also counteract the uncertainty of customers concerning the later consequences of the current financial crisis which are to be expected and the changes in buying behavior.

Customer experience management is a strategic management concept and enhances customer relationship management (CRM) by the addition of the genuinely important customer perspective. At the same time, customer experience management has taken to heart the lessons learned from the early implementation phase of CRM: economic efficiency and the controlling of costs important for this are a must and return on investment is the goal!

Good customer experience management complements CRM measures which have already been initiated by including a viewpoint from the customers’ perspective and concentrates on the positive shaping of the critical interactions with the customers. Detecon regards the drafting of concepts for emotional bonding of customers to the company required for this to be decisive. Besides the design of the CEM effect chain, there is a question of the definition of measurable, meaningful key performance indicators. In particular, it will be necessary in the near future to clarify how measures can be assessed in detail so that the benefits of investments in positive “customer experience” can be verified (return on investment of CEM). Detecon will continue to track the discussion of CEM from this angle as well and illuminate it to an even greater depth.

We will do so because operational CEM concepts and measurable successes for managers and strategic CRM decision makers are of key significance so that they can design and steer their customer-centric activities even more efficiently in economically troubled times.



6 Recommended Reading

(Q1) Schmitt, Bernd; Mangold, Marc: Kundenerlebnis als Wettbewerbsvorteil, 2004

(Q2) Schwager, Andre; Meyer, Christopher: Das Kundenerlebnis verbessern; in: Harvard Business Manager, p. 58, April 2007

(Q6) Gentile, Chiara; Spiller, Nicola; Noci, Giuliano: How to Sustain the Customer Experience, in: European Management Journal, pp. 395-410, October 2007

(Q7) Bonnemaizon, Audrey; Cova, Bernard; Louylot, Marie-Claude: Relationship Marketing in 2015: A Delphi Approach; in: European Management Journal, pp. 50-59, February 2007

(Q8) Temkin, Bruce D.: Customer Experience Innovation In Three Steps, Forrester, 2008

(Q9) Burns, Megan: Customer Experience Spending Intensifies in 2008, Forrester, 2008

(Q10) Temkin, Bruce D.: Focus on Customer Experience, Not CRM, Forrester, 2008

(Q1 1) Temkin, Bruce D.: Obstacles to Customer Experience Success, Forrester, 2008

(Q12) Forrester: The State of Experience-Based Differentiation, 2008

(Q13) Duncan, Leigh: Customer Experience Management vs. Customer Relationship Management, 2006

(Q14) Jan Carlzon: Moments of Truth, 1987

(Q1 5) Forrester Research Report: Obstacle To Customer Experience Success, 2009



7 The Authors

Patrick Eberwein is a Management Consultant in the Competence Practice Operations & Performance at Detecon in Bonn. At the end of his studies for his degree in international business administration with a focus on corporate consulting and corporate development at the University of Applied Science Bonn, he wrote his final thesis on the topic of “CRM for Automotive Suppliers in Original Equipment Business and in Parts Trade”. He has been a member of the Global Competence Team CRM at Detecon International GmbH since July 2007. He is an expert for the topics lead management and customer experience management.

He can be reached at:+49 228 700 2563 or [email protected]

Alexander Luyken is a Management Consultant in the Competence Practice Operations & Performance at Detecon in Bonn. At the conclusion of his business administration studies with a focus on marketing and innovation management at the Universities of Potsdam and St. Gallen, he wrote his final thesis on the topic of “CRM 2010 and Beyond – Opportunities and Challenges for Telecommunications Providers on High-performance Markets”. He has been a member of the CRM Group at Detecon International GmbH since 2007. He is an expert for the topics service differentiation, campaign management, and customer experience management.

He can be reached at: +49 228 700 2576 or [email protected]



8 The Company

Detecon International GmbH

Detecon International is a leading worldwide company for integrated management and technology consulting founded in 2002 from the merger of consulting firms DETECON and Diebold. Based on its comprehensive expertise in information and communication technology (ICT), Detecon provides consulting services to customers from all key industries. The company's focus is on the development of new business models, optimization of existing strategies and increase of corporate efficiency through strategy, organization and process improvements. This combined with Detecon's exceptional technological expertise enables us to provide consulting services along our customers' entire value-added chain.. The industry know-how of our consultants and the knowledge we have gained from successful management and ICT projects in over 100 countries forms the foundation of our services. Detecon is a subsidiary of T-Systems, the business customers brand of Deutsche Telekom.

Integrated Management and Technology Competence

We possess an excellent capability to translate our technological expertise and comprehensive industry and procedural knowledge into concrete strategies and solutions. From analysis to design and implementation, we use integrated, systematic and customer-oriented consulting approaches. These entail, among other things, the evaluation of core competencies, modular design of services, value-oriented client management and the development of efficient structures in order to be able to distinguish oneself on the market with innovative products. All of this makes companies in the global era more flexible and faster – at lower costs.

Detecon offers both horizontal services that are oriented towards all industries and can entail architecture, marketing or purchasing strategies, for example, as well as vertical consulting services that presuppose extensive industry knowledge. Detecon's particular strength in the ICT industry is documented by numerous domestic and international projects for telecommunications providers, mobile operators and regulatory authorities that focused on the development of networks and markets, evaluation of technologies and standards or support during the merger and acquisition process.

Detecon International GmbH Oberkasselerstr. 2

53227 Bonn Telefon: +49 228 700 0

E-Mail: [email protected] Internet: www.detecon.com

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Detecon Opinion Paper Customer Experience Management. Managing Customer Experience Profitably