Make it personal
The efficiency of online support, like telephone IVRs, is directly related to the ability to clearly and quickly present support options tailored to the individual customer. However, only around 40% of support departments in the communications industry currently offer access to personal accounts online.
More advanced operators have introduced personalized support homepages, which incorporate online widgets that display personalized information such as current credit balances, relevant tariff details, cross-promotions, and so on, together with relevant calls to action for the customer. Some systems even enable the customer themselves to choose and edit which widgets appear (in a manner similar to an iGoogle homepage).
Social networking is also increasingly being used to fulfill customer contact needs online. 3 Italy's community site, Le Sai Tutte, was launched in early 2007 as a support platform for its subscribers. Any subscriber can post a question on the site, but only "expert" users from the subscriber community - who are vetted with a set of tests examining technical and commercial knowledge - can respond to queries. Experts are encouraged to register and contribute by a reward system that provides them with airtime credits when positive feedback on their contributions is received from the Le Sai Tutte user community.
The site now has over 100,000 registered users and around 5,000 registered experts. Again, this innovation could become more extensively used in Asian markets with a high user uptake of social networking: for example, of 32 Australia and New Zealand call centers surveyed by Ovum in 2009, a third were already using social networking to interact with customers.
As telcos throughout Asia increasingly move toward converged product offerings, we expect to see increasing numbers of operators differentiate their service through these emerging customer care methods on mobile, fixed and web platforms, particularly given the cost efficiencies that can be achieved as a result.
Max Parry is a senior associate at Value Partners in Hong Kong. The company's telecoms practice has more than 1,000 professionals worldwide.