Nowadays many companies are failing to meet customer expectations, often because they simply do not understand or even realize these expectations. Companies are out to take a leaf out of the book of the renowned Swiss hotelier César Ritz who, in 1908, said that "the customer is always right". Clearly Ritz –just as the chain of hotels he has inspired – made a mission and a successful global business out of putting his customers at the center of everything his business did.

Understanding customers is still an aspiration rather than a reality – especially in the telecom service provider business. However, it is essential to building and maintaining a consistent view of the customer, which can then be translated into a comprehensive understanding of customer needs and behavior that guides sales and marketing activity and product and channel development.

Although sales and marketing professionals these days have a full CRM toolkit at their disposal, they often ignore one of the most important aspects of CRM – the customer experience. Customer experience is what counts in the long run – because it gauges whether you provided the customer what he needed, in the time he needed it, and in the manner that was expected. Customer experience captures the feeling that a customer walks away with, after an engagement or after dealing with any organization.

Simply put, 'customer experience' counts for everything (even more than ‘customer relationships’) in the way customers choose long term partners.

Organizations that are serious about CRM (and by extension, the needs of their customers) are therefore serious about designing and maintaining a quality customer experience. They recognize that a poor customer experience is a step toward customer defection, whereas a good experience encourages loyalty.