No one will question that a significant contributor to a company's long term success is customer loyalty. Loyalty is gained by providing your customers with an experience that make them keep coming back to you for more, and even bringing along others with them -ultimately helping you drive more revenue and profitability.

Technologies like NFV (network functions virtualization) and SDN (software defined networks) make the infrastructure on which services aredelivered, programmable and elastic so that Service Providers not only maximize their ROI but importantly, enable agile service delivery models that make it easier to provide one-off and customized services as well as respond to changing customer requirements. The adoption of a unified customer centric experience by Service Providers is crucial, not only at this network resource facing layer of the infrastructure, but also at the business and operational levels. This means establishing a robust foundation for:

• Easy ordering, changing  or deletion of a service by customers
• Streamlined order management and rapid fulfillment of the service
• Quick identification and resolution of service issues by the service provider
• Keeping customers informed along the way and ensuring their expectations are met.

I'm happy to announce that, during the upcoming TM Forum Live event held in Nice, France in early June, Cisco will showcase the customer centered, end-to-end service management capabilities of the Cisco Evolved Services Platform. In addition to helping Service Providers operationalize NFV and SDN, our goal is to bring to market innovative solutions that help them enrich and differentiate their value propositions around unified customer experiences.

My team and I are looking forward to this event and engaging with partners and Service Provider customers.

Please come see us at booth 7, Rhodes level! Tweet us for questions and comments @CiscoSP360