Alcatel-Lucent Expands CEM Solutions

Is offering a full range of customer experience management software and services

By George Winslow -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/7/2012 5:03:41 PM

Alcatel-Lucent is launching an expanded portfolio of software and services designed to help communications companies offer their customers better user experience with their mobile and other connected devices.

The customer experience management (CEM) solutions will be branded Motive Customer Experience Solutions.

In 2008, Alcatel-Lucent acquired Motive Inc., which provides CEM solutions, but in the last 24 months has been investing more heavily in the area in response to greater demand for better, more comprehensive CEM solutions, notes Ben Geller, senior director, solutions marketing, Alcatel-Lucent in an interview.

For many years communications companies had focused on expanding their customer base and market share, Geller says. But as markets have become increasingly saturated, the device landscape has become more complex and companies face increased competition from newer players, operators have put more emphasis on the consumer experience.

"There is a recognition that the market is flattening out and their strategies need to predicated on keeping the customers they have and growing the profitability of those customers," Geller argues.

Improving the consumer experience is particularly important at a time when "connected devices are becoming a much more important part of people's lives," he adds. "Technologies permeate their lives but there is an recognition that this technology has brought more complexity and created an expectation that providers make accessing the technology easier."

To help address those problems, the company has taken its existing CEM solutions, which are deployed in hundreds of companies, and invested in developing a number of new ones so it can offer a more comprehensive portfolio.

This includes Motive CX Management solutions, which is focused on getting new devices, applications and services up and running quickly; Motive CX Analytics offering, which provides monitoring tools that track the performance of the devices, applications and services running on the network; and the Motive CX Optimization solutions, which is designed to improve customer experience by making better use of their network capacity.

A fourth component of the offering will be CX Consulting, which will use patent-pending methodologies, to customers implement CEM strategies.

The CX Consulting is not branded as part of the Motive portfolio to emphasize that it is technology neutral, Geller notes.

Geller added that their existing solutions have also produced some notable improvements in customer metrics. Overall clients had seen a 5% decline in the number of help desk calls, a 10% reduction in average "handle times," and a 5% drop in churn rates, Geller says.