The majority of telecom executives consider the ability to anticipate subscribers’ needs, and proactively and personally interact with users, to be critical for effectively managing the customer experience.
Paralleling findings from consumer research conducted earlier this year, a survey by Comptel found that 67% of respondents cited a lack of consistent quality (such as dropped calls, low bandwidth and the slow loading of files) and poor customer service as the biggest contributors to customer churn. Nearly half (46%), however, believe more targeted offerings based around individual usage patterns, in combination with personalized apologies, discounted upgrade opportunities or other special offers following a service issue, will help mitigate turnover.
The survey also found that the majority of telecom industry executives (55%) cited analytics as necessary to deliver on this and capitalize on business opportunities. Three out of four executives reported leveraging analytics daily, weekly or monthly for customer retention, more targeted marketing or other performance improvements. Further, almost all survey participants noted thatreal-time capabilities to predict subscriber behaviors and understand the context of each customer interaction are essential.
Moreover, 38% indicated that their marketing activities and network fulfilment and delivery were not closely aligned. Operators, however, would reap benefits–such as reduced costs and improved customer interactions–from bridging the service order capture and service delivery process.
Opinions were split nearly evenly on whethercontextual intelligenceis best suited for monetization (via up-selling, cross-selling, personalized advertising and new customer acquisitions); churn prevention (via multi-SIM prediction, rotational churn identification and churn location); dynamic profiling and segmentation (via usage, interests, location, propensity to churn and influence); and advanced offer management to track or manage successful promotions and popular service bundles.
“To maximize a subscriber’s entire lifetime value, operators must look beyond the point-of-sale and instead think of each customer experience holistically,” said Comptel CEO Juhani Hintikka. “Analytics can go far beyond simple reporting by providing an understanding of individual customers’ behaviors, and enabling CSPs to convert that knowledge into intelligent actions, which can then translate into new business opportunities.”