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Prepaid is growing worldwide in both developing and developed markets, and with that growth remains the problem of churn. Operators find themselves acquiring new customers and continuing to drive top-line growth, yet they struggle with really understanding their customers and driving loyalty and retention to impact their bottom line. This is part two of the series, which explores tips for marketers who are focused on churn prevention.
From improving customer insight to launching loyalty campaigns and implementing retention strategies, operators are challenged with how to harness the data that they have – and act on it to drive better business results. For prepaid marketers, having customer insight is valuable but being able to capitalize on it to drive proactive and relevant customer outreach is game changing. Those who do will not only facilitate personalized, one-to-one customer experiences but also connect with customers in ways that have a profound effect on their bottom line.
Here are few additional tips for a marketer who is focused on churn prevention:
Monitor, track and act
Once marketers have identified the behaviors that drive high churn propensity, you need to begin the customer tracking and be ready to act. The success of prepaid marketing rests on the ability to engage with customers when it matters most – in the right context.
The context of prepaid customers i.e., their balance status, activity, location, usage, services, etc., constantly changes, so targeting customers in the “right” context is critical to increasing success rate and maximizing the return on customer retention initiatives.
Bring in technology that allows for the monitoring of customers’ behavior at scale and suddenly you can detect deviations from a customer’s “normal” behavior that indicate a high risk of churn. Incorporate automated decisioning to trigger a personalized offer at the right time e.g., when a customer has stayed in zero balance for an abnormal period of time, and you have the recipe for timely, well thought out customer interventions.
Tailor offers to maximize value of customer engagement
Key to any customer retention strategy is the ability to deliver retention offers that are personalized and contextually relevant. The varying needs and preferences of subscribers demand that benefits be tailored according to each individual to ensure that the offer is attractive. At the same time, costs must be tailored to a customer’s predicted remaining lifetime value to ensure that the value of retaining the customer justifies the investment.
Let’s also remember that it’s not a one strike and you’re out kind of game. If a customer does not accept your retention offer by the designated expiration date, you may consider delivering a fallback offer to the customer, using a different marketing tactic or offering a different incentive, as an alternate means for retaining the customer.
At the same time, once a customer accepts your retention offer, you may consider targeting the customer with follow-up offers, incentivizing service usage and additional top-ups, in an attempt to gradually re-build, and then stabilize, the customer’s previous behavior pattern. In this case, you are not only preventing a churn scenario, but also helping to increase the customer’s overall value.
