Source: http://www.businessworld.in/
In every industry, the customer is the most important factor. Sans customer, nothing gets bought; nothing happens. This rule especially applies to enterprises with a business-to-consumer (B2C) element like telecommunications companies.
Churn is a poisonous thing for a telecom. But it’s also something that’s really difficult to avoid. People want the best deal and features. And they’re often willing to switch providers in order to get something better—even if it’s just for a few months or a year. About three-fourths of people signing up for telecom services are coming from another provider, which highlights the high levels of churn in this industry.
So, how can telecom companies reduce customer churn?
Understand Customer Values
Simply understanding the values of customers can go a long way in keeping them, which is almost always better than having them go to a competitor.
Once you understand the values of customers, align services with them. If they care about reliability of service, make that the top priority. If it’s price, find ways to make your services less expensive—like streamlining your operating costs and reducing inefficiencies. If they make purchasing decisions based on additional offerings like streaming services, make sure you offer them appealing contracts with a la carte options. When your customers are happy, they’ll have less reason to leave your service.
Dig Deep into Analytics
Understanding customer behavior and industry trends won’t happen overnight. And relying entirely on gut instinct and experience simply won’t cut it these days. Telecom companies that want to avoid churn need to dig deep into their data to find what might be leading to churn.
There are lots of reasons why people might choose to leave a service. Identifying these patterns and correlations in data can help teams identify and fix performance issues. Now more than ever, enterprises need to evaluate their business intelligence for telecommunications. Modern platforms like ThoughtSpot are changing what’s possible in analytics thanks to features like relational search. Access to search-driven analytics allows users without a technical data background—like marketers and customer service managers—to make actionable queries in the same way they would search for something in Google. This allows employees to pull insights faster from multiple sources. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence (AI) analytics deep dives into data to unearth trends human analysts might have missed, which teams can then use to fuel decision-making around how to optimize the customer experience.
Understand There’s More Than One Kind of Customer
Many businesses thrive by developing a niche and building a brand that appeals to a very specific type of customer. This isn’t always the case with telecommunications companies, which often need to appeal to a wider range of individuals.
Parsing through data can help organizations get a better idea for exactly who’s using their services. This can lead to the creation of more specialized offerings, which will keep people from leaving for a competing service.
Test Ideas Before Attempting Wide Implementation
Sometimes ideas that seem great on the drawing board end up being a total flop when you actually try to execute them in real life. It’s important to try and avoid costly missteps as much as possible. One of the best practices for avoiding the launch of a failed endeavor is to test it out in a select market first.
For instance, if you try implementing a new pricing and service model and people end up hating it, that could spell disaster if it’s been rolled out to your entire customer base. Testing the waters will let you avoid instances that bring about a mass exodus churn.
Understand How Certain Actions Affect Margins
Your customers generally want to get more, and higher quality, services for less money. The specifics might differ; but that’s the general idea. You might be able to do that—reducing churn and attracting new customers—by understanding how certain actions affect margins.
For instance, you might be able to streamline a certain process to save a substantial amount of money. Attracting and retaining customers with that additional cash is one of the best possible uses.
Telecom companies need to do whatever it takes to reduce customer churn. Delving into data and better understanding customer wants are two of the best places to start on this endeavor.
