Editor’s Note: In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this Reader Forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but we maintain some editorial control to keep it free of commercials or attacks. Please send along submissions for this section to our editors at: [email protected].
Competing on cost is a surefire way to quickly attract customers, but it rarely results in a long and happy relationship. When price is the primary differentiator, your business is always at the mercy of your competitors’ next great deals.
The cost of churn for communications service providers can extend far beyond lost acquisition costs. Deep discounts may require cutbacks elsewhere in the business that can impact service quality and damage brand reputation. You can end up with a customer base composed primarily of churn-prone consumers. Retaining them locks you into a never-ending price war. It’s easy to see that this business model is unsustainable.
Thankfully there is a better way: Leverage your big data to develop, communicate and deliver highly targeted offerings across your user base. Customers get the services they want, churn is reduced and referrals increase. New revenue streams are created for you and your partners. Everybody wins, except your competitors.
How to get personal with your customers
Mine your customer profile and usage information to develop persona-based groups around what services your users value. Reliable, fast network performance may be of primary interest to some; affordable global roaming rates or family plans may matter to others; while another group may care intensely about data charges but rarely use its voice plan.
When you have your personas in place, develop irresistible offerings tailored for each group. Consider presenting them as rewards for your best customers instead of promoting them as “new customer only” deals. Taking great care of your long-term users is a hugely positive differentiator, one that companies can overlook in their perpetual drive to grow their customer bases. Look at how the travel industry courts its regular customers with special perks and incentives, it’s proven to be an effective way of building loyalty.
For better or worse
Analysis across all primary internal and external data sources can provide an early warning that a major churn event is looming on the horizon. Keeping an eye on emerging issues revealed by customer usage patterns, support data and social media conversations can help to address discontent before it becomes a disconnect.
On the brighter side, this same data will reveal what a CSP is doing right so that you can do more of whatever is working. Analysis will point to products and services that meet with customer approval as well as areas of general concern that are ripe for development – perhaps fraud protection and enhanced data security services. Taken as a cohesive whole rather than viewed in isolation, all of these data streams will provide actionable market intelligence that can enable a company to retain and attract customers while strengthening its own bottom-line.
Stay in touch
Data, when managed effectively, can also provide the critical information necessary to offer targeted recommendations in real time, enabling more effective support and retention efforts.
Cross-selling is only effective when there is a solid understanding of what an individual customer wants and needs. Creating personalized offerings based on customers’ usage patterns and preferences is obviously a better idea than trying to sell them whatever service you’ve opted to promote that month.
And as consumers become increasingly aware of retention tactics, they are likely to become even more resistant to generic offers. Understanding what matters to a customer provides the insight that retention specialists – and automated support applications – need to play let’s make a deal far more effectively.
Put your big data to work
No matter how much information you’ve managed to squirrel away, data isn’t useful until you extract meaningful information from it.
The problem with big data is that it’s so … big. Storing and processing it can eat up network resources. Real-time availability issues impact usability. Segregated silos can slow the flow of the data stream. These and other complications result in data that doesn’t live up to its business potential.
Sameer Nori is senior product marketing manager at MapR Technologies. Nori has 10-plus years of experience in the technology industry in marketing, sales and consulting. With an executive MBA from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Nori’s domain of expertise is in business intelligence and analytics.
