Enhancing service ecosystems through experience management in SIAM frameworks

An evolving focus on employee and supplier experiences within SIAM frameworks reveals new opportunities for organisational resilience, collaboration, and customer satisfaction beyond traditional cost-cutting strategies.

In contemporary discussions about customer experience, the focus overwhelmingly centres on the end user, often overshadowing the crucial roles played by employees and suppliers behind the scenes. This narrow viewpoint, while understandable, risks neglect...

ing the broader service ecosystem that fundamentally shapes service quality and customer satisfaction. Service Integration and Management (SIAM) frameworks, which orchestrate multiple service providers to deliver seamless outcomes, offer a compelling governance structure not just for accountability and process alignment, but also as a platform for enhancing the experiences of both employees and suppliers.

Drawing on three decades of experience in the ICT sector, it is apparent that cost-cutting moves, particularly large-scale outsourcing and offshoring, have frequently led to fragmented service capabilities. Many businesses transition tasks to business process outsourcing (BPO) firms, often followed by further offshoring to countries like India or the Philippines, resulting in redundancy for original in-house employees. While these moves may be cost-effective on paper, they frequently incur hidden costs: loss of valuable institutional knowledge, degraded service continuity, and declining morale among staff and customers alike. Performance metrics can begin to slip as new offshore teams contend with complex processes, compounded by cultural differences that exacerbate operational hurdles. The fallout includes rising ticket backlogs, missed service level agreements (SLAs), and ultimately, falling customer satisfaction scores. Some clients have even mandated support teams remain onsite to preserve service quality, highlighting the risk of cheap alternatives turning into costly lessons.

SIAM environments, designed to coordinate distributed service providers, are not immune to these challenges. Their success hinges on recognising that the ecosystem includes more than end-user customers—it fundamentally depends on the experience and engagement of employees delivering the service and suppliers supporting it. Experience Management (XM) frameworks emphasise the need to monitor not only customer experience but also employee and supplier experience, promoting morale through thoughtful transitions, inclusive collaboration, and effective onboarding processes.

The concept of Experience Level Agreements (XLAs) is pivotal here. Unlike traditional SLAs, which focus on performance metrics like response times and uptime, XLAs prioritise user perception and satisfaction—extending beyond the customer to employees and suppliers as well. This mindset shift invites organisations to ask critical questions upfront: Are employees engaged early in change processes or merely informed post facto? Are suppliers valued as strategic partners instead of interchangeable vendors? Is adequate time allocated for knowledge transfer and cultural integration, or is adaptation expected on the fly? SIAM offers governance structures to tackle these questions but requires deliberate prioritisation of experience management to maximise benefit.

Suppliers, much like employees, constitute essential extensions of an organisation’s service capability. Treating them as mere contractual entities—measured only by compliance to SLAs and cost targets—fails to capture the nuances that impact service delivery. Suppliers need context, open communication channels, and genuine involvement in strategic discussions to perform optimally. When supplier experience is ignored, organisations face fragmented communication, unclear escalation paths, and erosion of trust, undermining collaboration and delaying problem resolution. Conversely, organisations that foster strong supplier relationships see benefits in service stability, innovation uptake, and supply chain resilience. Embedding XLAs focusing on collaboration quality and mutual satisfaction alongside SLAs transforms supplier engagement from transactional compliance to co-creation of value—a competitive advantage within SIAM frameworks.

The broader implications of outsourcing and offshoring bear out these concerns. Independent analyses underline the cultural and operational gaps that arise when outsourcing functions overseas, including communication delays, loss of accountability, and resultant drops in employee morale and company loyalty. Studies, such as the 2023 Deloitte Customer Service Excellence report, have found that while offshoring can reduce costs, it frequently induces declines in customer satisfaction due to language barriers, cultural disconnects, and slower issue resolution. Nearshoring, which aims to bridge some gaps, still faces challenges like moderate cost savings and regional market volatility. These realities demonstrate that cost considerations alone are insufficient; priority must be given to sustaining quality customer experiences through effective governance and cultural integration.

From an employee perspective, outsourcing often disrupts corporate culture, fostering misunderstandings and diminishing trust if employees are excluded from planning and transition stages. This can feed a downward spiral of disengagement, lowered morale, and reduced innovation capacity. Successful management of outsourcing thus hinges on involving employees early, maintaining strong company culture, and nurturing their development even amidst structural changes. Such efforts mitigate the risks of displacement and fragmentation that otherwise degrade service delivery.

Ultimately, a service ecosystem resembles a living environment, where care and investment in each component—from employees to suppliers—directly influence the quality of the final output, much like a farmer ensuring the wellbeing of chickens to guarantee healthy eggs. Organisations must extend their experience management lens beyond polished customer portals to encompass the entire chain of service delivery. By repositioning employees and suppliers from cost centres or line items to experienced stakeholders, companies can build more sustainable, resilient, and customer-centric service models.

This evolving conversation around employee and supplier inclusion within SIAM is gaining traction in professional circles. It will be further explored at upcoming industry events such as the Scopism’s Service North Conference, offering a platform for leaders to share insights on aligning employee, supplier, and customer experiences. In doing so, businesses can move beyond simply chasing cheaper service outcomes to delivering comprehensive, high-quality experiences that benefit all parties in the ecosystem.

Source: Noah Wire Services