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Today, it’s imperative for telecom companies to extend their focus beyond merely providing connectivity to delivering quality connected experiences. Despite multibillion-dollar investments, many telecommunications companies struggle to identify new sources of revenue. The spike in inflation has only increased pressure on subscription businesses in a saturated US market.
More than half (54%) of telecommunication decision-makers and influencers say that improving customer experience (CX) was the top transformation initiative for their company in 2022, according to IDC. These companies are looking for inspiration beyond their immediate peer group to build customer trust and offer convenient, personalized, user-friendly experiences.
This is the moment to focus on loyalty by giving customers the option to customize their service packages and by offering attractive bundles.
PwC’s survey of US consumers and customer loyalty found that:
What is a CX-driven strategy? It starts with simple and intuitive customer platforms designed to drive a connected buy flow and foster consumption of services across devices. It underscores value for network coverage and performance. Investments in networks and enabling technology have become the new baseline, but unless telecommunications companies can translate these expenditures quickly into a richer CX and value-added interactions, they’ll likely stagnate.
70% of customer interactions will involve emerging technologies, such as machine-learning applications, chatbots and mobile messaging by the end of 2022.
Across sales and service interactions, customers have come to expect proactive, predictable and seamless communication with their digital service providers. To meet this demand for an omnichannel experience, telecommunications companies should clearly understand where and when they deliver value to their customers. They also should avoid offering multiple buy flows.
To do this well, companies should invest time in selecting the right tools and capabilities for customer relationship management (CRM). For example, CRM platform optimization can serve the dual purpose of reducing unnecessary customer touchpoints both directly (e.g., by providing real-time context into channel-specific interactions) and indirectly (e.g., through automated workflows and routing).
Customers want to feel not only heard but understood by the brands they choose to purchase from; they want to know that their values align. Telecommunications companies can track behaviors and interactions within each brand and segment to develop a 360-degree view of their customers. These insights can then be used to inform marketing campaigns, product strategy, pricing strategy, sales pipelines, service support and more. This continuous feedback loop is critical to not only enhancing CX in a way that drives increased sales and customer lifetime value, but also identifying what is most important to your customers.
Predictive analytics driven by artificial intelligence (AI) allows companies to better anticipate customer behavior and needs by tracking cross-channel engagement. For service use cases, this can include providing agents with the latest action and product recommendations or proactively notifying customers of an early detected issue. To drive or maintain subscription revenue, companies can use this technology to help identify opportunities for cross-selling or upselling as well as customer segments at risk of churn. Telecommunications companies can leverage automation and analytics throughout the customer life cycle to simultaneously streamline processes and exceed customer expectations.
Fit For Growth is a proven model to slim down critical spend categories to emerge stronger and ready for growth.
Go-to-market strategy and sales transformation includes programmatic demand generation and sales automation efforts to drive increased leads, conversions, and renewals.
Employ anything-as-a-service (XaaS) tools and accelerators to design and deliver a compelling customer experience aligned to key business and financial outcomes.
Pricing digital twin technology can assess the robustness of pricing strategy against changes in macro and microeconomic scenarios.
PwC’s Service of the Future Framework and Service Analytics & Artificial Intelligence (AI) Accelerator are available to advance next best action, AI/machine-learning and digital-twin capabilities.
Lori Driscoll
Technology, Media and Telecommunications US and Global Consulting Leader, PwC US