With the market for cellular customers now saturated across most of the developed world, retaining existing customers has become a major priority for mobile operators. This is because it is demonstrably more cost-effective to retain existing customers than to attempt to win new ones from their competitors.

This is good news for subscribers too, as it means that operators are working hard to provide them with the best possible user experience in order to retain their user base.

Various analyst research and media announcements at last weeks TM World Management forum in Dublin showed that the rapidly-growing number of smartphone users are the most demanding customers, in terms of their expectations, but also, that they generate the highest ARPU (average revenue per user).

So operators, not surprisingly, are prioritising their efforts around keeping this sector happy. According to a keynote from Facebook EMEA director of operations, Colm Long, over 80 per cent of telecoms operators now claim that having Facebook on their platform is imperative.

This is why, in my opinion, tools that provide a holistic customer experience management (CEM) view are now being widely sought after. These solutions can enable communication service providers to continuously monitor and manage their customers proactively, and in real time, through one interactive interface.

The objective of CEM is to firstly reduce order fall-out, then establish and validate the overall quality of service and billing experience of mobile customers. This is in addition to providing an insight into the types of users and devices that are being used to access data services. If specific customers appear to be having a less-than-ideal user experience, the service provider can not only improve the level of service experience for them but also target special offers that may encourage loyalty.

If Dublin taught us one thing last week, it is that there is growing pressure mounting on service providers to manage and grow the revenue from their customer base. For this reason alone, using some form of CEM solution for a more granular insight into customer activity is becoming increasingly important moving forward.

Sanjay Kumar is VP, communications & Media at Progress Software