In a highly competitive telecom industry, customer engagement is a key factor in building and maintaining a competitive edge. Telecom customers no longer make decisions exclusively on price points and features. They expect reliable experience from their service providers. Moreover, cannibalization of voice and messaging business by entrants like Facebook messenger and WhatsApp has compelled the telcos to look for innovative ways to protect their customer base.
Building a modern customer-centric and engaging experience is a daunting task for the Telcos. It requires serious thinking and strategizing. Here are the top industry-proven strategies for telcos to foster customer engagement.
Digitizing Customer Service
Moving from traditional customer support and service to digital customer service can be seen as a key driver for telco business transformation. Switching to e-care reduces the contact center operating expenses by 25-30%. Online customer support can also lead to improved CX as 76% of telecom customers claim to be fully satisfied with their digital-only journeys versus a 57% satisfaction rate for traditional channels. (Source: McKinsey & Infopulse)
To enhance customer engagement, moLotus - an innovative mobile video customer interaction platform - has revolutionized the way Telcos can serve their customers. The ‘Rate-it’ capability of moLotus guarantees real-time customer ratings and feedback for different service issues to the Telcos enabling them to analyse and improve upon. moLotus automation has significantly reduced the call centre headcounts contributing to lower overheads giving a competitive edge.
Customer service chatbots also offer an exciting opportunity for telcos. They can slash their contact center costs and improve CX at the same time.
Making Communication More Personalized
Customer churn is a major issue plaguing telcos. For every customer loss, Telecoms operators end up paying twice: once by losing the future revenue of the customer, and then in the investment to acquire a new customer. (Source: Knexus & Gemius Global)
Dynamic telco marketers have found a solution to this customer churn. They have started using customer data to segment and target for personalized recommendations, offers and messages to increase conversion rates, sales and customer loyalty. These 1 on1 real-time personalization efforts differ from the traditional methods. Personalization has gone beyond offers and messages to include content, interactions, needs and behaviours of individual customers rather than only segments. Telcos should not invest their time and resources mastering the old mass personalization techniques. In fact, they should embrace disruptive marketing tools like moLotus to send highly individualized, automated and interactive content to their customers for better engagement.
Sales Process Automation and Transformation
Telcos should empower their sales teams with instant access to the right sales automation tools and information for better sales closure and conversion and upscaling average revenue per conversion.
A CRM tool with high integration features could be handy in this regard. An internal CRM dashboard should include all the process information and sales procedures that the telco sales team would follow when working with a prospect. It can also include sales forms that will allow the team to log data on the go and upload it to the central CRM. This way the sales agents won’t waste time on double-handling the data and better engagement of their customers.
Taking Advantage of Big Customer Data
Telecom companies are in an interesting position. On one hand, they are already possessing huge amounts of customer data in their systems. On the other hand, most telecom players are still struggling to analyze and transform that data into meaningful insights. Application of predictive analytics in the telecom industry will lead to massive payoffs, especially in terms of customer engagement and profitability.
Telcos can transform the vast array of structured and unstructured data into enriched customer profiles via advanced analytics tools. moLotus with its rich advanced analytics features can be a game-changer. Telcos should explore moLotus for unlocking and monetizing the unmonetized customer data.
Exchange Rewards with Actions
The subscribers are more than happy to reciprocate when the telcos provide them with something they like. Telco marketers should reward loyal customers with special offers, discounts, or coupons and in return request them to leave reviews or create user-generated content. Telcos can use moLotus special capabilities for creating reward campaigns like mRedeem. moLotus’ mContest runs hassle-free, cheap and fast contests for subscribers with superior response and engagement.
The Bottom Line
Next-generation digital marketing strategies stated above offer real opportunity for the Telcos & Brands to engage their ever-demanding customers in a challenging landscape. A customer experience reformation would certainly yield Telco business transformation. Telcos that advance their digital customer engagement will experience the biggest upside.