Mobile telecom operators are in a prime position to take advantage connecting the digital experience for consumers
Digitalization of services has driven convergence across industries leading to a very fast rise of the connected, demanding and influential consumer leading to a role reversal. Historically, telcos had full control over the services and the products that customers accessed over the network. The increasing use of over-the-top applications has turned the tables in favor of the customers who control what service they want, when they want it and how often they use it.
Even the most novice users today have a comfort level with their personal mobile devices and use them to execute tasks and make decisions. Mobile computing has led to a world connecting people, devices, organizations and appliances. The ubiquitous mobile phone, with the multiple digital products and services, is a part of a customer’s digital identity.
Reclaim the ownership of customer experience: rules of engagement
The customer now expects the digital services to be relevant and satisfying, making it increasingly important for telcos to provide experiences that match the customer’s needs. Let’s consider the classical flow of service delivery – the awareness moment, the evaluation moment, the consideration moment, the purchase moment and finally the consumption moment. The process which was separated by hours or even days is now fragmented and extremely compressed from hours to minutes to seconds to milliseconds.
Interestingly, telcos are best positioned to leverage deeper consumer insights to revamp the customer experience by driving a personalized, contextual and interactive engagement. They can enhance the experience by ensuring every interaction is relevant to the customer and provide well-timed engagement related to the customer’s immediate surroundings.
Flip to digital: customer-centric digital customer engagement.
Listen to me, intently
There is a general understanding that “data is the new oil.” In today’s digital economy, no company has more information about their customers than mobile operators. Most mobile phone users will have their phone with them 24/7, even while sleeping when it is used as an alarm clock. This means the telecom operator knows (within the limitations of data privacy) where the customer is at any given time, who they interact with, what channel of communication is being using, and what financial institutions and other companies are sending them messages.
Also, in the age of social networking, customers are always expressing their opinion about everything, including what products and services they use or wish to use. These real-time conversations and consumer-generated content are rich sources of information for driving contextual communication.
The implementation of big data platforms and the usage of streaming analytics within them allows companies to capture, process and interpret all of that information in real time. The ultimate objective is not just creating very complex models to understand the individual behavior, but also identifying relevant pieces of information and events. There will be two distinctive kinds of events – those that are relevant for building a 360-degree view of the customer, and those that are relevant to understand the context of an interaction.
Know me, holistically
Digital customers are used to being “listened to” and have now become demanding. They expect a consistent omnichannel experience from telcos, tailor-made products, personalized treatment and real-time responsiveness while assuming that we know them “inside out.”
To match these expectations, operators need to transform the data and events collected in the “listening” processes into intelligent insights about the customers’ behavior. This is where the advanced analytical capabilities come into play: Soft clustering for heuristic segmentation or prescriptive “next-best-action” model are just afew examples of advanced analytics, which allows telcos to use deeper consumer insights from a slew of data sources to personalize the value proposition for customers.
These advanced analytical models need to be fed with not only telecom usage information, but also with information generated when customers interact with telcos to understand which products they desire, which channels they prefer, payment preferences, complaints, location, etc. When telcos fully understand the customer behavior and consumption patterns, they can dramatically improve their ways and add value.
Empower me, completely
Telcos have to ensure their customers feel empowered. Providing customers with access to all the information on their profile and enabling them to easily configure and manage their services is key to make them feel they are in control. Digital customers are used to and prefer making informed decisions. Telcos can combine the power of advanced analytics and multiple interactive channels to ensure such interactions are spontaneous, coherent and result oriented.
Delight me, instantaneously
Another related aspect of growing consumer power is the rise in service delivery expectations shaped by the digital players. Having experienced excellent service from digital enterprises, consumers now apply these standards across all service providers and demand an instant gratification and proactive recommendations from telcos.
Real time, integrated and closed loop solutions ensure instant fulfillment of offers by driving the interaction with downstream applications. This is fundamental not only in digital interactions, but also in the interactions with the service of sales agents in the shops or customer care channels. The wealth of information and insights have to be made available to them so they can properly manage their customer interactions, thus achieving coherence and relevance.
Digital economy battleground: the elusive silver bullet
The traditional discount-based promotion has resulted in deal-seeking behavior in consumers for telco offerings. Telcos need to move away from the push-marketing strategies to drive customer engagement and embark upon a journey of real-time, personalized and contextual customer engagement strategy around the customers’ lifecycle as well as their lifestyle needs.
In an industry where the competitive dynamics is getting fiercer, the aforementioned trends have created an opportunity for telcos to deepen and enrich customer engagement. The ability to deliver a superior customer experience is difficult to replicate and is the only to acquire a sustainable competitive advantage for telcos.
Editor’s Note: In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this Reader Forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but we maintain some editorial control to keep it free of commercials or attacks. Please send along submissions for this section to our editors at: dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
