Its not only Technology that needs to be delivered , its more than that ...

Being a Telecom Architect, Consultant and I front ended many Implementation by utilizing my strong Telecom Business domain and delivered the business value more than Technologies, my key success criteria got measured by deliver my Global Telecom knowledge by understanding the customer AS IS problems and their Business challenges. I always believe more than delivering a technology where any SI’s in the market can do today, it’s my experience and global knowledge which differentiated us from the other players in the market. With this article, I would like to articulate certain key components of Telecom as an Industry from my experience and my play in this segment,

Telecom is one of the most advanced industries when it comes to understanding customer behavior and consumption. In the past decade, telecom industry has seen massive technological advancements. This technology, backed by structured data, makes a very strong case for better customer management.

Currently, the biggest growth driver in telecom is data. Customers demand high-speed data as well as high volumes of data. This need is increasing as customer transactions are moving online. With the market trend in all the part of the world, we found the space for digitization and automation which can help the service providers to increase the Revenue and improvise the customer experience. Today all service providers they wanted transform from Communication Service providers to Digital Service Providers by moving towards Penta play means providing wireline for home calls and WiFi. They wanted to support the IOT play to create a new marketplace for on-demand digital TV and movie channels. As today customers are paying a high subscription cost for channels, even though they do not watch all. Being DSP’s telecom players would be venturing into this arena.

As the market evolves, services providers need to provide a seamless customer experience. This experience also needs to unique, while fulfilling the customer requirements. With a few changes in operations, telecom companies can adapt to the environment. They can thus provide a better customer experience than ever.

From our global experience we feel below are the area the service providers can show the differentiation as niche player in the market, below are the focused area I feel the service providers can upgrade their process with support of Technologies partners with their expertise.

Better Customer Experience through Resource Upgrade

Most of the service providers still stick to the old methods of training their associates. They start with soft skills and move on to product-related training. This method of training is fast becoming irrelevant. Modern feedback systems assess ASAT (Agent Satisfaction Score). They measure the quality of customer interaction provided by each agent. Based on the scores, associates can be high scoring, average scoring, or low scoring agents. Using text analytics, customer feedback is also used to analyze the associate’s performance. These inputs define the areas that each agent needs to improve. The training manager can then work with the agent to strengthen his weak areas. Low scoring agents undergo training and monitoring until their performance improves. With machine learning, it’s easier than ever to increase the quality of customer support. Training has also become easier by focusing on the weak areas, rather than on every aspect. Currently, all the training is reactive. But service providers can move to a more proactive training process by considering the below factors,

· Listening to its customers on social media and other platforms

· Arriving at a list of top topics or emerging topics of interest.

· Training the sales team on those topics.

This not only reduces repeat calls but also enhances customer experience. Training and retaining top performing associates are a major step in achieving consistency.

Customer Behavioral Pattern

As with any business, understanding the customer behavioral pattern is crucial in Telecom as this is one of the key factors for service providers to retain the customer’s by serving them best. Each customer of the company undertakes a different journey with a personal goal in mind. If the organization knows in advance his roadmap, supporting him would be much easier.

A typical customer’s journeys include- buy, sell, explore, get support, setup, use etc.. A company can understand this journey using customer feedback, text analytics and structured data. Knowing how the customer reaches out can help you fine tune your communication.

“For example, assume there are two customers who have similar usage and recharge patterns but have an issue with their data packs. Using journey roadmaps, the company can understand each customer in detail. In the first case, the organization understands that this customer is new, and is exploring data. He needs more support to understand his handset, how he can use data and how he can solve minor issues by himself. In the second case, the customer is a long-time user and is well versed in such information. The company can solve his problem and even give him a higher consumption plan.”

This illustration clearly gives a proper method to address each customer based on his journey in the services that provided by the CSP’s. Implementing such a practice not only brings down repeat calls but would make his experience much better.

Emerging Technologies Adaption

Modern IVR

One of the pain points which every customer face when he calls the support center is the static IVR. He is forced to go through the entire flow, in spite of knowing what he wants. Here, he looses a lot of time and would never be happy with the experience. In such cases implementing the Modern IVR would solve the issue and create a good experience. Based on customer transaction, it can predict why he might have called. Alternately, it can allow the customer to speak through his phone and directly go to the menu of his choice (voice-based selection). This not only saves considerable time but also helps in giving precise information to the customer. These modern IVR predicts his problem by looking at his previous issues and his current plan. As the machine is self-learning, it improvises over time and provides a better experience to customers. It reduces manpower and training costs as well. It gives accurate tagging and other information to the organization to make quick and informed decisions.

Chatbot

This is one service that every telecom operator can provide. A Chatbot is a part of any company’s digital transformation journey. Chatbot frees up customer centers to resolve larger issues, while it handles a majority of the minor issues. Bots can also take requests from customers and raise CRM tags. They can also keep the customer updated, during their processes.

Future of customer experience would be a combination of structured and unstructured analytics. Digital transformation services such as Chat Bot and Modern IVR would help, solve and record information. They would also use this information to provide seamless personalized experience to customers. In the future, most of the retention and acquisition games are not going to be built around price but on customer experience management.