Most organisations have a long list of things they want to improve to make life better for customers and progress the business. But few know which ones have the potential to change the experience for customers while improving ARPU. The telecoms customer lifecycle helps mobile and cable operators identify the experience points where they can achieve the greatest business impact.
Customers have similar experiences
Every telecom operator and service provider is different, but customers behave in surprisingly similar ways with any company in the industry. The typical challenges customers face, highlights opportunities that any operator could take advantage of. For a telecom operator, these include onboarding new customers, introducing new products and services, supporting customers across channels and preventing churn.
A grounded framework to understand customers
The customer lifecycle is a framework to capture, understand experiences and behaviour of over eighty percent of the installed base. Having access to this aggregated view, companies are able to identify experience points that have as strong influence on customers’ decisions and behaviour. Armed with this knowledge it is possible to define the interventions that can improve customers’ experience and make a business impact.
Know the customers and service hotspots
Understanding the customer experience from the outside in enables organisations to identify the ‘hotspots’ where customers suffer irritations and the business underperforms. While these hotspots apply to all customers, the possible solutions depend on the internal capabilities of the service provider and its position in the market. It is worth the cost and effort to go after all hotspots. It is more effective to target particular hotspots and address the underlying failures.
Prevent costly customer incidents
Change the dynamics of the relationship with new customers by providing what matters to them and you know they need. Informing customers, or assisting in the setup can be done without additional costs or complexity by focussing on the needs of all customers. A perfect start provides a platform to engage customers when this is relevant to them which prevents irritations and saves money by preventing incidents and defection.
Onboarding new customers and prevent incidents
A significant source of customer irritation with operators is poor service. What’s often ignored is the opportunity to prevent the need for support in the first place. Designing a great experience for customers with new and renewed contracts is a fantastic opportunity to address up to 60 percent of preventable incidents and reasons for customers to churn.
During the first days and weeks of a new contract, an operator can systematically inform, assist and train customers in services that are difficult to understand or setup. Done well, the results are more satisfied customers that invest more time and money in the services on offer.
Introducing a new product or service
Regardless whether it is a new tariff, introduction of data services or combined services such as mobile banking, there is a significant risk that customers will not understand, appreciate and adopt the proposition. The lifecycle helps to de-risk the launch of new services.
As an example, up to 20% of customer will choose not to adopt a mobile payment service if they don’t manage to set it up on their phone at their first try. The customer lifecycle helps define and design an engaging service and reduce confusion and resistance. The results are more confident customer and faster adoption.
Multi-, cross-, omni channel
Multi-channel strategies were developed to support the same transaction and communication in each channel. Now organisations are getting to grips with cross channel experiences, where customers interact seamlessly with the organisation in the channel of their choice. In Omni channel customers engage organisations across multiple channels, platforms and media – sometimes all at the same time – where no one organisation is in control.
Cross-channel enablement
Customers use the web, call-centers and stores to get help and sort out problems. Whether they are enquiries about the bill, problems with the handset or a need to get a different package, customers often struggle to get consistent support across the channels. Knowing where in the customer lifecycle typical problems occur, enables operators to prepare better responses to known problems irrespective of the channel the customer uses..
Over 80% of operators measure customer satisfaction in terms of network performance and 40-45% in terms of quality of customer service.
Understand customers, design for impact
The telecoms customer lifecycle is an incredibly powerful framework to understand which initiatives will make the most impact for customers and the business. It gives clear direction for the design of detailed customer journeys, and helps identify solutions that work. The results will show in both more satisfied customers, and more successful operations.
No comments:
Post a Comment