Zain Group, a leading mobile telecom innovator in eight markets across the Middle East and North Africa, announces the successful conclusion of its Customer Engagement Forum 2016, a three-day event held in Kuwait 4-6 April, which drew senior personnel from across the Group operations. Customer experience management remains one of Zain Group’s keys strategic pillars, with the company investing heavily in the area in order to maintain the highest quality of service for its customers.
The Customer Engagement Forum focused on areas of customer experience management and topics of discussion included Customer Centricity and Complaint Management; Channel Economics; Change and Knowledge Management; Social Care as well as a dedicated session and focus on Zain’s brand and digital online future strategic direction.
Key presentations were made to the Zain management by leading global and regional technology providers specialized in the customer management arena showcasing the latest solutions available, namely Cybermak, Matrixx, Qelp, ResponseTek and Sestek. In addition, innovative end-to-end mobility digital services provider FOO Solutions, the entity that Zain recently acquired a strategic stake in, showcased how mobile apps can be at the center of customer services.
The Forum was led by Zain Group CEO, Scott Gegenheimer, and Group Chief Commercial Officer, Duncan Howard who have been strong advocates for the Group’s focus on customer experience management, having overseen a number of key initiatives in the area recently.
Commenting on the successful conclusion of the Forum, Scott Gegenheimer said, “In today’s competitive telecom landscape, customer experience management is as important to the sustainable success of a telco as technical innovation and investment. At Zain, we take this area of our business very seriously and are developing it as one of our key differentiators. As a Group of operations we benefit from differing experiences in our respective markets, and it is important to be able to gather regularly and share knowledge and insights in settings such as the Customer Engagement Forum.”
Zain is set to continue to develop its laser-like focus on simplicity and operational efficiency, with customer experience remaining an important factor in driving commercial success. Retaining customers is vital and Zain strives to deliver the best experience in order to achieve this. Elements within Zain Group’s customer experience management program include the quality of its network, delivery of value-added services, as well as the improvement of all customer touchpoints.
In an example of Zain Group’s heightened investment in customer experience management-related activities, last year the Group and its country operations introduced a series of analytical tools and activities aimed at heightening customer satisfaction levels, the results of which are proving positive.
Zain’s holding of regular Customer Week exercises forms part of the company’s ongoing commitment to delivering the best-in-class customer experience, and was conducted across all Zain Group markets simultaneously. Zain personnel, including business chiefs, directors, managers, and general staff interacted closely with customers during the week through different activities arranged in conjunction with the local customer experience teams.
Across its markets, each quarter approximately 150-200 members of Zain Group’s management participate in Customer Day (Voice of the Customer) activities whereby the company conducts customer-related activities that take place in each of its markets, where management teams participate in customer-related activities including serving in retail, answering calls in contact centers, social media chats, corporate customer visits, on-site base station visits with engineers, and so on. At the end of each session, management teams meet to discuss their observations and a list of actions are created to determine what needs to continue to improve.
Zain has also implemented an internal customer survey feedback platform, which continues to be rolled out across markets, providing deep insights on customers’ key interactions. When customers interact with the company through a visit to a branch or when calling customer service, they soon thereafter receive a SMS based survey that addresses questions related to satisfaction with the interaction, effort required to handle their request, agent knowledge to deal with their interaction and more.
These real-time insights have enabled Zain country operations to continue to shape their plans to drive the right results ultimately aimed at reducing customer effort and increasing both customer satisfaction and net promoter score. The real-time tool has now launched in five markets, with the remaining markets due to go live this year.
Additionally, members of the Customer Care and Customer Experience community across Zain Group participated in the Global CEM accreditation training as part of bi-annual forums undertaken by the company. The interactive training was aimed at continuing to develop capabilities and skills related to customer experience and required participants to submit an examination assignment in order to be accredited. Many of Zain’s community members are now certified in Global CEM as a result.