In the fast-evolving and highly competitive telco industry, telecom customer experience has emerged as the battleground on which companies either flourish or flounder. This is because telco networks are so central to peoples’ lives – telcos don’t just provide a service; they enable our digital world. The quality of the digital telecom customer journey is therefore central to customer retention and satisfaction. In a sector where products are increasingly commoditised, delivering an excellent digital customer experience is the differentiator that can elevate a brand above the noise, fostering loyalty in a market where customers are spoilt for choice.
Five key stats about customer experience (CX) in telecom
Research demonstrates time and again just how important a good digital CX is to win and retain customers, yet it seems that some telcos struggle to deliver:
- 66% of consumers hold telco brands up to a higher standard than most other industries when it comes to service.
- 70% of consumers say that CX is a major factor when selecting a telecom service provider.
- Telcos that excel with customer experience grow revenues 4%–8% more than the market average because a superior experience helps to earn stronger loyalty among customers.
- With a Net Promoter Score (NPS) average of 31, telecom holds the lowest industry average for CX.
- At 27% telcos experience the second highest churn rate of any industry, a direct result of poor CX.
Improving customer experience in telecom through digital marketing excellence
Of course, customer experience in telecom incorporates several different factors including the availability and quality of the network, the responsiveness of customer service teams, and the product and service bundles available to consumers. Another key element of improving the customer journey is telecoms’ companies digital marketing strategies. Here, telcos and their agencies of record need to focus on achieving two interconnected goals: 1) delivering highly personalised and relevant experiences, and 2) protecting consumer privacy.
The importance of personalised experiences is clear. Consumers are vocal about their preference for tailored content and communications, and meeting this demand requires a completely new approach to CX. As McKinsey states: “Next-generation CX…involves combining customer, operational, and network data to create highly personalised, relevant experiences in real-time. By using data to predict customers’ needs, operators can proactively address issues and create exceptional ‘wow moments’ across all channels and at each step of the customer journey, offering the same quality of experiences as digital natives.”
However, customer personal data must be protected throughout this journey. Not only is privacy protection key to meeting regulatory obligations such as those imposed by GDPR and other similar laws, but it’s also important in meeting customer expectations for privacy. According to recent research, 94% of organisations say that customers wouldn’t buy from them if their data was not properly protected and 95% believe that privacy has become a business imperative.
Telecom customer experience strategies for marketing
One way to meet these twin objectives of personalisation and privacy is to put telco’s own network intelligence to use. Innovations in the adtech ecosystem mean it’s now possible for telcos and other brands to safely activate their first-party data in programmatic personalised advertising campaigns. The key enabler is telco-verified IDs, a privacy-centric alternative to the third-party tracking cookies that have previously been used for such personalised engagement.
Telco-verified IDs come in two “flavours”. The first is a verification ID that enables telcos to recognise consented users consistently. Crucially it does this with no personal information needing to be exchanged. Telcos can thereby verify all users across sites and devices and create robust consented unified profiles.
The second type of telco-verified ID is a transaction ID that securely activates audiences. These IDs are created using consented unified profiles in real-time and enable retargeting and first-party audience delivery at scale. The moment the ID is verified by the telco, the in-network technology associates the requested audiences to the ID and sends specific responses to each agency buy-side platform.
Delivering for customers
Telco-verified IDs enable telecoms companies to become CX champions. As well as enabling personalised targeting at scale, the IDs can also help telcos identify customers at risk of leaving by leveraging contract information and data intelligence. Armed with this insight telcos can act by offering relevant promotions or simply getting in touch with the disaffected customer. Telco-verified IDs can also help optimise the customer journey by mapping and unifying unique audiences across owned sites and re-targeting with the right messages at the right time. Finally, telco-verified IDs can help telcos recognise existing users so they can be thanked through loyalty programmes and offers.
The telco market may be more competitive than ever, but through personalised, privacy-centric marketing strategies operators can differentiate through winning customer experiences.
