Customer Experience Management: A Comparative Analysis of Telstra and Vodafone Australia

This report examines the customer experience in the telecommunications sector, focusing on Vodafone Australia and Telstra. It analyzes the factors contributing to positive and negative customer experiences, highlighting key CEM concepts like customer journey mapping and customer centricity. The report compares the two companies' approaches to customer loyalty, satisfaction, and brand awareness, demonstrating how Vodafone Australia's customer-centric strategy has led to a more positive customer experience compared to Telstra.

Customer Experience Management
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Contents
Essay...........................................................................................................................................................3
References...................................................................................................................................................8
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Essay
The report deals with the understanding of the significant customer experiences in the
telecommunication sector related to business strategy and success. For the practical
understanding Vodafone Australia and Telstra has been considered. Vodafone Australia is the
organization that operates Vodafone services in Australia. It has 27% of the market share and is
the third largest mobile telecommunication provider in Australia. Telstra Corporation Ltd. is the
telecommunication company that operates and builds telecommunication network, mobile
phones and internet access. Generally, most of the Australian believes that the services provided
by Telstra gave them poor customer experience due to slow speed and drop out issue with
internet. Vodafone Australia provided the high customer satisfaction to customers by providing
quality of service through personalized way.
I) Proto persona diagram for poor customer experience:
Name and Illustration
Telstra Corporation Limited.
The organization is now fully privatize
which has gone through various changes so
that the customers can get focus but failed
due to low speed of internet connection
(Telstra Corporation Ltd., 2018).
Behaviors
The key people are Andy Penn and John
Mullen. According to the survey in 2017 the
number of employees in the organization
constituted 32,000 to provide services to the
customers (Telstra Corporation Ltd., 2018).
Demographics
In Australia, The retail mobile services were
provided of around 17.6 million, retail fixed
voice services and broadband services were
5.1 million and 3.5 million (Telstra
Corporation Ltd., 2018). It has its
headquarters in Melbourne, Australia.
Needs and Goals
The main purpose is to lead the Australian
Market by providing simplified products and
services to the customers. It also provides the
value to trust each other for delivery of
services.
Image: Proto persona diagram
Source: By Author, 2018
Two key problems:
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The main pain that was faced by Telstra was of billing for the customers at all level. The bills
which were produced by the organization were lengthy and often ranged from 2-10 pages so
these bills were generally considered as incomprehensible (Johansson and Kidron, 2017). Many
of the large enterprise had to assign third party so that the bills can be reconciled as they were
100-1000 pages long (Johansson and Kidron, 2017). The lengthy invoices cost around $20
Million to Telstra to produce the mail. Another was that of internet speed and connectivity. The
internet speed and the network connectivity was also one of the pains as this hampered the
operations and productivity of the organizations (Johansson and Kidron, 2017).
Image: Actual Data of complaints
Source: Arboleda, 2018
Key CEM concepts:
Customer Journey Mapping: The customer journey mapping is the methodology which helps
in documenting the various stages and maintaing the interaction with customer’s journey (Du
Plessis & De Vries, 2016). The problem of the lengthy bill arrived as the continuous
improvements were not made which may help the brand to isolate the key difference of
competitive differentiation. With this the survey from the customers were also not taken by
Telstra (Du Plessis & De Vries, 2016).
Customer Centricity: This means the customers are given most priority while taking any of the
business decisions and for every functions of organization. Telstra did not focused much on the
customer’s needs and demands which faced the problem of slow internet connection and
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connectivity. This is important for the organization to carry the customer needs as they are the
one who will help in maximizing the profits (Du Plessis & De Vries, 2016).
II) Proto Persona Diagram for Positive Experience
Name and Illustration
Vodafone Australia
It was started in 10 June 2009 and this was
the result between the merger of Vodafone
Australia and Hutchison and it created
entity of mobile communication of 7 million
subscribers (Vodafone Australia, 2018).
Behaviors
The CEO of Vodafone Group is Inaki
Berroeta. There are 4500 employees
according to the survey of 2010 who are
serving to provide the telecommunication
services to the customers (Vodafone
Australia, 2018).
Demographics
It is the market leader among Australia with
18,775,000 mobile owners (Vodafone
Australia, 2018). The Vodafone network is
used by approximately 96% of the Australian
population.
Needs and Goals
The needs of Vodafone Australia are to enrich
the lives of customers through the power of
mobile communication which is unique in
nature. It also aims to be the communication
leader so that the world can be connected.
III) Positive points and application of at least 2 CEM Concepts
Most of the Australians believe that Vodafone is one of the best service providers in Australia.
The positive point of the organization is that it offers the mobile network through the impressive
technology which made them attract the large number of customer’s to avail the services. With
this also the high speed internet services are provided at the lower cost so that every individual
can easily avail the services (Du Plessis & De Vries, 2016). They also provide the customized
local services to the customers with flexible plans so that the efficient gains can be offered by
ensuring that the customers feel like valuable business (Jamison, 2012).
Two concepts:
Costumer Lifecycle: This is the process which helps in retaining the customers for the lifelong
(Domb, et. al., 2018). For example, the same Vodafone Australia has developed the products
accordingly and then the decisions are taken related to the purchase so that the customer can be
retained and the loyalty for the product can be enhanced. It had optimized the customer
engagement so that revenues can be maximized and the satisfaction of the customers can be
enhanced (Venkatram & Zhu, 2012).
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Customer Experience: The experience of customers is related to the interaction of customer
with that of companies (Venkatram & Zhu, 2012). The products which were provided by the
Vodafone offered the high quality of service and connectivity within the areas so the trust was
gained about the brand among customers which in turn enhanced the experience of customers for
the particular brand and also created the brand awareness (Venkatram & Zhu, 2012).
Comparison of two experiences
Image: Customer Satisfaction
Source: Arboleda, 2018
Point of distinction Telstra Vodafone Australia
Customer Loyalty Telstra does not focused much
on the loyalty of customers as
the experience after sales was
not satisfactory for the
organization. The users of
Telstra faced various issues
due to which they lost the
loyalty of customer towards
the particular brand (Uusitalo,
2012).
The Vodafone Australia much
focused on the customer while
the taking the decisions for
business. They focused on the
retention of customers by
providing the quality of
services at very affordable
price.
Customer Satisfaction The level of the customer
satisfaction was low as the
internet speed was quite low
and the customers also faced
the connectivity issues.
Most of the users were using
the Vodafone services as they
provided the high speed data
at cheaper price which
attracted the large number of
customers due to its enhanced
quality (Uusitalo, 2012).
Brand awareness The awareness about the brand
in Australia is less as the
Vodafone Australia is one of
the renowned brands in
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services provided by the
organization are not of quality
which declined the customer
experience and hence the
awareness about the brand was
also decreased (Uusitalo,
2012).
Australia due to its great
performance and by providing
the flexible services. It also
provides the services to small
business which in turn helped
in increasing the brand
awareness among the users.
It can be examined from the above discussion that the experience of the customer towards the
particular product is dependent upon the various services that are provided by the organization.
Telstra provided the poor experience to the customers of Australia while the Vodafone Australia
provided the great experience by focusing of the customer centric concept of the customer
experience management. Proto personal diagram helps in is the process which is designed by
considering the users of product. The Telstra to enhance the experience of customers have to
create the online portal through which the bills can easily be downloaded by the customers which
will reduce the size of billing and ensure that the information is easy to understand.
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References
 Arboleda, N., (2018). Complaints about Telstra, Optus, Vodafone continue to increase.
[Online]. CRN. Available at: https://www.crn.com.au/news/complaints-about-telstra-
optus-vodafone-continue-to-increase-489485. [Accessed On 26 June 2018]
 Domb, M., Sujata, J., Sanjay, B., Arindam, R., & Jypti, S. (2018). An Empirical Study to
Measure Customer Experience for Telecom Operators in Indian Telecom Industry. GSTF
Journal on Business Review (GBR), 4(2).
 Du Plessis, L., & De Vries, M. (2016). Towards a holistic customer experience
management framework for enterprises. South African Journal of Industrial Engineering,
27(3), 23-36.
 Jamison, M. (2012). Methods for increasing competition in telecommunications markets.
 Johansson, T. and Kidron, T., (2017). Improving Customer Experience in
Telecommunications Company.
 Telstra Corporation Ltd., (2018). About Us. [Online]. Telstra Corporation Ltd. Available
at: https://www.telstra.com.au/aboutus. [Accessed On: 26 June 2018]
 Uusitalo, M. (2012). Customer Experience Management in Telecom Operator Business:
A Customer Service Perspective.
 Venkatram, R., & Zhu, X. (2012). An Analysis of Factors Influencing the
Telecommunication Industry Growth: A case study of China and India.
 Vodafone Australia, (2018). About Us. [Online]. Vodafone Australia. Available at:
https://www.vodafone.com.au/about. [Accessed On: 26 June 2018]
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