Second-annual event in Kuala Lumpur showcases businesses embracing customer centricity; new TM Forum tools deliver customer engagement metrics, lifecycle management, maturity models and more to help transition from customer experience to customer engagement 

CEM InFocus 2013, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Dec. 2, 2013: As a slew of over-the-top services threaten the bottom line of traditional service providers, they are turning to customer data analysis and customer experience management (CEM) initiatives to better understand what their customers want, how happy they are, and how to avoid churn. In fact, according to a survey by TM Forum, 70 percent of service provider attendees at a recent customer engagement workshop in San Jose, Calif., said that creating a customer engagement strategy is “critical or very important” to sustaining engaged customers and re-engaging profitable disengaged customers.

Today, many existing customer experience management programs only take a snap shot of one customer interaction over a short period of time, and don’t fully uncover the customer’s needs. As a result, at its CEM InFocus 2013 event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, TM Forum is helping businesses move away from measuring individual aspects of an experience to measuring the sum of each customer’s interaction, or engagement level, over a longer period of time.

From demonstrating the benefits of a customer engagement strategy and the ROI of customer centricity, to driving engagement in the digital environment, to a CXO roundtable on innovating the customer experience for the digital era, CEM InFocus 2013’s thought-provoking keynotes, panels and sessions are covering all the angles of one of the industry’s hottest topics.

“Many service providers have a departmental approach to customer experience and take bits of data, break them down into the smallest chunks and get poor results,” said Steve Cotton, director of business assurance programs, TM Forum, who is speaking at the event. “Businesses need to shift their thinking and sample data to understand each customer touch point and experience over time. It’s really about paying attention to the customer journey, and shifting the business focus from short-term business activity like cost reduction, churn reduction and revenue growth, to the longer view of customer engagement.”

The event is just one way that TM Forum is helping service providers continuously grow their business by moving beyond traditional customer experience, and exploring how to enable one-to-one customer engagement to maximize market share, customer loyalty and growth opportunities. In addition to a new Customer Engagement Program, TM Forum’s Frameworx 13.5, the latest version of TM Forum’s suite of best practices and standards, includes many features focused on customer engagement:

• 250 new Customer Experience Management Metrics
• An enhanced Customer Experience Management Maturity Model to improve usability
• An enhanced Customer Experience Lifecycle provides common language, definitions and mappings to Frameworx for all stages of a customer’s journey
• The latest version of the Customer Experience Management Guidebook provides an introduction to the concept of customer engagement as the evolution of customer experience management

In addition, TM Forum’s latest Insights Research Report, “Customer Experience, Hitting a Moving Target,” offers pragmatic recommendations about how to get the biggest benefits from investment in customer experience across the organization. It includes an outline of the Forum’s ongoing work on customer experience, and is designed to give operators a set of best practices and tools to help them attain ever high levels.

CEM InFocus, held at the Prince Hotel, Dec. 3-4, offers interaction with 150+ senior-level executives and professionals. Attendees have access to a case study-driven conference agenda, dozens of world-class speakers, leading service providers, TM Forum experts, enhanced networking opportunities and an expo showcasing key suppliers.

About TM Forum

TM Forum is a global trade association trusted by the world’s largest enterprises, service providers and suppliers to help them continuously transform to succeed in the digital economy. We help our members reduce costs and risks, improve business agility and grow their business through a wealth of knowledge, tools, standards, training and practical advice.

We bring together more than 85,000 professionals from 900+ member companies to share experiences, collaborate and rapidly solve critical business challenges including IT transformation, business process optimization, big data analytics, cloud management, customer experience management and cyber security. Our three strategic programs—Agile Business and IT, Customer Engagement and Open Digital —enable us to provide a platform for overcoming the barriers to an open digital world. For more information about TM Forum, visit www.tmforum.org

Global TM Forum Media Contact
Elizabeth Coyne
Senior Director Marketing, Corporate Communications and PR
+1 973 641 3247
[email protected]