"Mobile technologies advance so quickly that end-users can get left behind, frequently abandoning new services because of perceived complexity or because of very real problems with functionality. Recently, the launch of mobile technologies such as the Apple iPhone have shifted mainstream thinking towards the true value of the user experience and its ability to drive service adoption or increase customer loyalty," explains Tim Deluca-Smith, director of WIF and VP marketing at WDSGlobal. "But what does user experience really mean? How do you measure it, improve it and protect it? How does the value of the user experience differ between countries and user demographics? These are all questions that the Wireless Informatics Forum has been designed to address.
"We are a truly community-driven resource. We are not about standards settings and we are not about industrial lobbying, we are about industry alignment behind what we believe to be a new success driver for the mobile market -- Wireless Informatics and user experience optimization," adds Deluca- Smith.
WIF is based on the concept of Wireless Informatics, the practice of sharing knowledge, best practices and experiences throughout an organization's value chain to deliver the ultimate mobile user experience. It's about identifying key points of end-user dissatisfaction, understanding the root cause and applying a fix 'upstream' in order to mitigate recurrent issues and cost.
It's a practice that is becoming increasingly popular with mobile operators and manufacturers looking to extract value from their customer care operations, better understand their users and apply that intelligence throughout their ecosystem -- from development and product management through to retail and marketing.
WIF, launched by Wireless Informatics specialist WDSGlobal, actively encourages open industry participation at http://www.wirelessinformaticsforum.org and asks visitors to adopt the Five- Point Charter that it believes will help to realign the mobile community behind user experience optimization and Wireless Informatics:
1). The mobile user experience is frequently compromised by technology complexity. Go-to-market strategies for new products and services must put the consumer first and include more comprehensive market education, training and support solutions, allowing end-users to access the services they need first time, every time and without disruption.
2). Problem prevention is the new problem management. A better understanding of the user experience, from retail environment audits through to post-sale customer care analysis, will help to mitigate continuing support issues and enhance the user experience.
3). The way in which mobile end-users source devices, share and consume content and connect to services is changing. The industry must adopt best practices to accommodate this new behavior and deliver a consistent user experience no matter what the origin of product, service, or connection type.
4). Customer care and all related support services must not be viewed as an OPEX drain and final frontier in the end-user relationship. Instead such support environments must be recognized as fertile grounds for changing user behavior, driving more profitable usage patterns and championing user experience optimization strategies across the organization.
5). A chasm is forming between the wants and needs of the mobile operator, the device manufacturer and the service / content provider. This misalignment is damaging to the user experience and must be closed in order to deliver compelling mobile data services that meet end users' expectations for service and quality.
