The telecom industry is highly competitive and providers need to focus on enhancing customer experience to build, as well as maintain, a competitive advantage.
In this Reading Room, we feature three articles that discuss the importance of customer experience (CX) in telecom and how telcos can deliver an exceptional CX.
We conclude with insight from Dori-Jo Bonner on the important role digital communication plays in enhancing CX, and some of the ways digital communication can effectively drive CX in the telecom industry.
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The importance of customer experience in telecom
Telecoms are finding it difficult to retain customers in this competitive digital marketplace, where consumer expectations are forcing organizations to bring customer experience to the fore. The goal of today’s telecom operators is to improve customer retention and increase average revenue per user, both of which can be achieved by enhancing customer experience (CX).
According to this article, telecoms will need to embrace technology to help them become more customer centric. And the growth in customer touchpoints will allow telecom operators to improve every step of the customer journey.
Three business areas impact CX and are thus a key focus for operators: fulfillment – in terms of service delivery, service assurance, billing and revenue.
Read further to learn more about these three CX drivers as well as “the platform mix for great customer experience”.
- Publisher: Wipro
- Access: Public
- Download: None
Simple and Digital Is Calling—Will Telcos Answer?
According to this article, telcos are struggling to stay in touch with the evolving and demanding needs of their busy, digitally-orientated consumer market. Their customers are looking for simple and digital products, which is a challenge for telcos still stuck in legacy systems and processes.
“Bain & Company analysis of more than 150 telcos in 12 markets shows that telcos that have embraced an approach to products and processes that are simple and digital, outperform their peers in customer loyalty and both top and bottom-line growth.”
The three authors of this article (partners of Bain’s telecommunications team) give their respective insight into the key elements of successful transformations, the benefits of ‘simple and digital’ for telcos, as well as advice on how to make measurable change happen – you can watch and listen to each author discuss their points in video format as well (three seperate videos).
- Publisher: Bain & Company
- Access: Public
- Download: Download
Five strategies to improve customer experience in telecoms
“According to Forrester’s CX Index scoring system, telcos that increase CX score by one point will generate an additional $3.39 in per-customer incremental revenue.”
This blog post stresses that to maintain a competitive advantage, customer experience in telecoms must be a priority. There is mention of a recent report by Forrester showing that improving customer experience (CX), can boost all of a telecoms’ KPIs.
It is suggested that the first step telecoms should take to improve CX is to identify their customers’ pain points, as well establish how addressing them will impact the business goals in terms of boosting revenues and cutting costs. It is said that reducing contact center calls, as well as technician callouts, is often the best way for these organizations to increase customer satisfaction and cut costs.
Read further for five great examples of successful CX initiatives by leading telecom organizations.
- Publisher: TechSee
- Access: Public
- Download: None
A comment from our digital communication expert:
Telcos must focus on enhancing CX by engaging with customers digitally and tracking their behavior to consistently improve the relevance of customer communication. The return on investment will be loyal customers who won’t be tempted to switch to another provider. This should be the number one priority for telcos, with CX now being the key competitive differentiator. A good place for telco operators to begin enhancing CX is to review and align their digital communication strategy – if your customer messaging works to enhance CX – this will become a competitive edge. These are some ways digital communication can effectively drive CX in the telecom industry:
- Digitizing the customer experience (send bills, policies and other communication digitally)
- Converting customers to digital processes, allowing them to engage on the channel of their choice, while ensuring a fracture-free CX across all channels and communications.
- Using AI to create personalized experiences via chat, social media channels, email and text – based on their previous interactions, thus driving customer engagement and satisfaction.
- Placing custom offers into the body of the communication or in chat conversations – customers want relevant marketing information that is personalized according to their interests and life stage.
