Marketing ImpactCreating

Customer Focused

for Telcos

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARYUnyielding competition, flailing customer attention and adverse market conditions have made telco landscape quite volatile. Yet an aggressive pricing war is seen as the most effective way to manage the situation by many telco marketers. What these marketers fail to realize is that a price driven, myopic marketing outlook does not guarantee the sort of impact that can win customers into their fold. The needs of the hour are smart, sensible marketing programs which utilize customer centric insights at the most relevant touch points to deliver what customers want, as opposed to the blind blitz campaigns with slightly tweaked tariffs which unfortunately are more prevalent in the current landscape.

UNYIELDING COMPETITION, FLAILING CUSTOMER ATTENTION AND ADVERSE MARKET CONDITIONS HAVE MADE TELCO LANDSCAPE QUITE VOLATILE.

The following white paper highlights certain key programs that can bring create the significant marketing impact from a customer value perspective. The focus of this white paper will be to establish the rationale behind choosing these programs and the impact that they can produce.

In a time where customer experiences count above all else towards marketing success, telcos require to equip themselves with the capabilities to heap one to one attention and create a personalized experience for their customers. Personalization driven marketing can drive value through Base Marketing and New to Brand programs.

Base Marketing Programs utilize existing customer information such as databases to create tailored CRM campaigns aimed at delivering value to the existing customer. New to Brand Programs on the other hand treat the target audience as prospects at large and run programs under the assumption that such prospects may or may not have interacted with the telco brand previously.

Nevertheless, regardless of whether the campaign audience is a customer or a prospect, the need of the hour are marketing programs with customer centricity and personalization at the heart of their communication. And for the purposes of discussion, this whitepaper will focus on Base Marketing Programs.

BASE MARKETINGPROGRAMSBase Marketing programs are a fundamental component deliver marketing impact in the telco context. By leveraging customer centric programs with a focus on cross and up selling telcos expect to see a lift in spending across product offerings. The ultimate aim among telcos is to influence an increase in the customers’ share of wallet and base market lift using analytics is perfectly poised to do so.

BY LEVERAGING CUSTOMER CENTRIC PROGRAMS WITH A FOCUS ON CROSS AND UP SELLING TELCOS EXPECT TO SEE A LIFT IN SPENDING ACROSS PRODUCT OFFERINGS.

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PRODUCT

REQUIREMENT PRICE

OFFER

The key to capturing customer attention is offering the right product at the right time. By knowing which product to offer a customer, telcos stand a greater chance of resonating with the customer needs and consequently influence a spike in interest in their various products and services.

To achieve the above goal however requires improving the existing propensity models that are used by telcos to predict a customer’s propensity for a particular product. Such a model must be enriched to the extent that they can accurately predict the likelihood of customers responding to an extended offer to a greater degree than what is currently possible. And a closed loop iterative modelling process is ideal to achieve the above goal.

BY KNOWING WHICH PRODUCT TO OFFER A CUSTOMER, TELCOS STAND A GREATER CHANCE OF RESONATING WITH THE CUSTOMER NEEDS

In a closed loop marketing framework, telco marketers can utilize insights from historical customer responses and purchases as inputs to their propensity models. Doing so offers telcos a much richer field of data to score customers and precisely predict their propensity for a particular offer. The increased level of predictive capability can then empower Telcos to reach out to customers with next best product recommendations confidently based on the model’s insights.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO PRODUCE ANIMPACT IN BASE MARKETING?

Historical campaign responses can educate telcos on campaign specific intelligence such as customer preferences, channel preferences and overall messaging. The campaign line of communication can then made to realign in line with the context across multiple channels simultaneously and logically influence a higher campaign engagemnt.

Online customers can also be targeted dynamically based on their browsing behavior by presenting relevant offers via cross sell and up sell campaigns. Telcos can overlay transactional data with socio-demographic, product-portfolio information and transactional behavior and redefine market basket analysis as a collection of customer specific data rather than a series of discrete visits. Telcos can combine the resultant insights with NPTB (Next Product to Buy) algorithms and offer products that have a chance of converting browsing prospects into buying customers.

Although base Marketing Programs encompass a complete spectrum of CRM campaigns, for the purposes of discussion the whitepaper will focus specifically on Customer Retention and Customer Loyalty and how personalization can create an impact on the same.

The key to capturing customer attention is offering the right product at the right time. By knowing which product to offer a customer, telcos stand a greater chance of resonating with the customer needs and consequently influence a spike in interest in their various products and services.

To achieve the above goal however requires improving the existing propensity models that are used by telcos to predict a customer’s propensity for a particular product. Such a model must be enriched to the extent that they can accurately predict the likelihood of customers responding to an extended offer to a greater degree than what is currently possible. And a closed loop iterative modelling process is ideal to achieve the above goal.

In a closed loop marketing framework, telco marketers can utilize insights from historical customer responses and purchases as inputs to their propensity models. Doing so offers telcos a much richer field of data to score customers and precisely predict their propensity for a particular offer. The increased level of predictive capability can then empower Telcos to reach out to customers with next best product recommendations confidently based on the model’s insights.

Historical campaign responses can educate telcos on campaign specific intelligence such as customer preferences, channel preferences and overall messaging. The campaign line of communication can then made to realign in line with the context across multiple channels simultaneously and logically influence a higher campaign engagemnt.

Online customers can also be targeted dynamically based on their browsing behavior by presenting relevant offers via cross sell and up sell campaigns. Telcos can overlay transactional data with socio-demographic, product-portfolio information and transactional behavior and redefine market basket analysis as a collection of customer specific data rather than a series of discrete visits. Telcos can combine the resultant insights with NPTB (Next Product to Buy) algorithms and offer products that have a chance of converting browsing prospects into buying customers.

Although base Marketing Programs encompass a complete spectrum of CRM campaigns, for the purposes of discussion the whitepaper will focus specifically on Customer Retention and Customer Loyalty and how personalization can create an impact on the same.

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CUSTOMER RETENTIONPROGRAMSWith highly competitive offerings and price wars being the norm in the telecom landscape, customer loyalty is close to extinction, being replaced with massive churn rates. Hence there is a need for captivating retention programs that allows telcos to hold on to existing customers and prevent them from seeking the competition.

Telcos must take a proactive stance on customer retention and churn minimization strategy. Churn reduction and retention strategy that is driven by customer information, responses and contact history has a greater chance of striking the right chord with customers. However for Churn reduction models to work efficiently telcos must ensure that the quality of their customer data and retention programs that use the data are of exceptional quality.

THERE IS A NEED FOR CAPTIVATING RETENTION PROGRAMS THAT ALLOW TELCOS TO HOLD ON TO EXISTING CUSTOMERS.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO PRODUCEAN IMPACT IN CUSTOMER RETENTION?

Retain

Some key considerations for achieving the above are as follows:

● Managing customer expectations at relevant touchpoints

● Maintaining time stamped records in the customer database

● Integrating promotional offers across channels to ensure only relevant offers are presented to customers

● Ensuring that customers do not experience campaign fatiguebeyond proprietary data sets.

One negative impact stemming from churned customers is that they can also influence other customers (non-churned) to follow suit. This can lead to an exodus of customers purely based on word of mouth. But telcos can utilize the analytics to develop models that addresses risk across key customer lifecycle stages and identifies customers who are most likely to churn. This approach aims to address customer issues before they become key reasons for customer dissonance and proactively quell any chances of attrition. Telcos can turn to the following variables as a means to understand customer sentiments and behavior.

● Basic call related information

● Customer profiling methods

● Customer Service history and behavior

● Speech Analysis

In practice however the actual number of variables used can go into the hundreds not to mention the multiple iterations and extrapolations that ultimately make up the entire data suite.

Additionally, telcos must also take care to ensure that customers do not become explicitly aware of being a part of retention programs. Aggressive pursuing through retention programs have negative connotations attached to them and in some cases actually induce customers to churn.

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LOYALTY PROGRAMSIn tandem with reducing attrition, inculcating loyalty among customers can help telcos cement their position in the mercurial market conditions. Customers who participate in loyalty reward programs need to feel valued of their patronage. Telcos can then offer exclusive benefits to customers that increase their loyalty and advo-cacy of the telco’s products.

CUSTOMERS WHO PARTICIPATE IN LOYALTY REWARD PROGRAMS NEED TO FEEL VALUED OF THEIR PATRONAGE

What does it take to producean impact in Loyalty Programs?

For loyalty programs to be truly impactful, telcos would have to understand the various customer loyalty drivers. Studying such drivers can help telcos understand customer sentiments, vis a vis loyalty and help create the most effective offers and promotions that resonate with the customers. Some sources of such insights include

● Historical Customer Insight

● Research and Focus Groups

● Customer feedback

● Social Media

Additionally telcos can also capture customer online journeys, web pages accessed, product interests and SMS contacts at an individual level and tailor the line of communication to suit individual needs. Doing so would also impact customer experience, loyalty and brand advocacy in a positive manner. The following are some examples of bonus and tiered schemes that have a good record inducing customer loyalty.

● Usage based bonuses

● Recommend a friend

● Direct and Indirect Point systems (Telcos and Partners)

● Lotteries

● Tiered Memberships

● Clubs

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

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Telco operators are due for a much needed introspection into their marketing approaches. By adopting a more insightful and customer centric perspective on customer communications, telcos stand a much higher chance of creating engagement and resonance. As the industry and customers undergo a significant change, telcos for once, have a chance to lead marketing transformation from the forefront rather than be silent observers and followers.

ABOUT XERAGO06.................................................

Xerago is a new age marketing solutions company with a footprint across Asia Pacific, now making its foray into USA. Clients include Citi, DBS, HDFC Bank, SM Retail, Celcom, Starhub, Intel, BharatMatrimony, and a number of other market-leading and start-up brands.

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