Today’s customers are always on, always connected and it’s changing how they use and shop for digital devices. 2020 was a wake-up call when life migrated to working from home and Telcos had to quickly adapt to the shift in demand. Now that consumers have settled into a new hybrid work, digital first lifestyle, how can Telcos improve the customer experience (CX) to keep ahead of customer expectations, and why should they?
Improve CX for the fastest path to growth
According to Forrester: Telcos that increase CX scores by one point will generate an additional $3.39 in per-customer incremental revenue. Additionally, the report predicts that Telcos have the third highest potential for increasing revenue by improving CX, after the automotive industry and hospitality.
Service delivery with fast reliable connection, security, and a choice of contract options have become the expected norm and are no longer a competitive differentiator. Which means that if Telcos wish to delight customers, it has to start much earlier in the customer journey. This requires an understanding of industry and customer experience trends and customer needs, and the ability to optimize digital experiences in a way that delivers on constantly evolving expectations.
Trends influencing customer experience
Personalization
Customers are craving personalized services as it can be frustrating to have to sift through the thousands of possible choices when it comes to selecting a new contract or upgrade. This is the ideal opportunity for Telcos to leverage data to delight customers with relevant and value filled offers, by helping them find the best option and facilitating an effortless sign up process.
Sustainability
Environmental awareness is growing among customers and tech companies are often called out for fueling electronic waste through planned obsolescence. A prime example is introducing new models of mobile phones and encouraging upgrades long before the products reach the end of their lifespan.
Recently Apple announced that it would no longer supply charging cables or headphones with new phones as a way to reduce electronic waste. Admittedly, most households have dozens of charging cables and don’t really need more, but the implication that Apple was doing this for the good of the planet, and would by default benefit customers didn’t really fly. Charging cables and headsets make up such a small portion of electronic waste compared to the numbers of phones discarded each year and customers had become accustomed to getting these extras, even if they didn’t need them. In terms of an effort to improve CX, it was a failure. Sustainability is likely to grow in importance for customers, but greenwashing isn’t the way to go about it. Rather showing customers an understanding of what sustainability means and making a real effort—that’s more likely to have a positive impact on CX.
Mobile Use
For many people, life without their mobile phone is unimaginable. They shop, make payments, search for information, navigate to where they want to go, connect on social media taking photos and videos, and access and respond to emails. All of this in addition to communicating through voice and messaging with friends and family. As a result, mobile devices have become pivotal to many aspects of CX.
For Telcos, it means they not only have to deliver on the expectations of the products and services they offer. They also need to ensure that their service delivery supports everything else customers use their mobile phones for and can adapt to accommodate changing needs.
AI-driven optimization leverages trends and data to improve customer experience
These trends indicate how broad and complex CX is in the telecommunications industry. There are so many unique factors influencing how customers think or feel about a certain brand that there is no single way to improve CX. This is why Telcos need the ability to experiment with many different ideas, variations, and combinations of those ideas to better connect with customers on a personal level. Additionally with change taking place so rapidly, Telcos need to be able to see how customers are reacting and gain insights quickly so that they can respond with information and offers that are relevant and in a timely manner.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is perfectly suited to this type of complexity and can find top performing experiences from thousands of variables in different combinations. AI-driven optimization actively learns from real customer responses to ideas and continually seeks to improve CX across the whole customer journey and each of its touchpoints. If Telcos are looking to gain that $3.39 in per-customer incremental revenue through improved CX, AI-driven optimization should be a consideration and priority.
