It was a clever move on Nokia Siemens Networks’ part to debut the Customer Experience Management (CEM) On Demand portal for mobile carriers right on Valentine’s Day.

After all, the solution was designed to “put some love back into” the relationship between the customer and their mobile service provider, the company said.

Just how much love has been lost between customers and carriers as of late? Brace yourself. Nokia Siemens Networks Business Solutions reported this summer that four out of 10 high-value customers are dissatisfied with their current operator and subsequently planned to switch operators within a 12-month period.

When tuning in to a recent webcast hosted by Sheryl Kingstone, director of enterprise research at Yankee Group and Iris Heinonen, global head of marketing and corporate affairs for Nokia Siemens Business Solutions, I learned that expensive monthly service plans took top spot for customer dissatisfaction at 35 percent; poor reliability such as dropped calls came in second at 20 percent. One of the top motivators contributing to churn [or a move to greener pastures or products] was a lower cost of services from other providers. In other words, money matters and so does the quality of service.

“Users are the ultimate power brokers,” Kingstone said during “Manage and Monetize the High-Value Customer Experience,” adding that everyone must understand what’s going on with that power because it will ultimately determine “which technologies will succeed and which won’t succeed…users want what they want when they want it on the device of their choice.”

Yankee Group identified the “high-value customer” as one that is an advanced user of mobile Internet with daily or weekly usage of email, location-based services, video and gaming. Nokia Siemens backed that point with research indicating 67 percent of high spenders in the U.S. are heavy users of advanced services, and they’re relatively young, in the 25-34 age group. But, 40 percent of high-value customers are also more likely to churn within a year.

The underlying theme of the Web session was this: have a holistic end view of your customer. It’s having the “real-time information to predict and act” before a customer even realizes an issue, according to Heinonen. It’s not enough to have an insight into customer activity if you can’t act on it.

So, back to the CEM on Demand portal. It’s laden with features like “Voice of the Customer” dashboards to display real-time insight and feedback. Key performance indicators for networks, services and devices are linked with customer-centric reports for recommendations that enhance the customer experience. It’s also optimized for iPad and other mobile devices.

CEM on Demand Portal dashboard on tablet device

A centralized CEM solution like the portal is an intelligent new way to foster cross-enterprise customer care, but still, “understanding, listening and reacting positively lie at the heart of strong relationships,” said Nokia Siemens’ head of customer experience management Amiram Mel, in a statement.