Customer expectations have never been higher. In the retail world there has been huge progress in the way that brands connect and communicate with their customers. The bar has been set high and consumers now expect consistent brand experiences across many touch points from all sort of organisations.
Communications service providers are beginning to digitally transform to deliver better and personalised customer experiences. The focus has predominately been on improving products and services, but there is still a lot of work to do to unify the entire customer journey. The telecoms sector, along with other industries that collect regular payments, is not making the payments channel consistent with the rest of the customer journey.
The fork in the road
Telco and mobile consumers often feel that the payments and collections channel is disjointed from the rest of the brand experience, testing their loyalty and patience. Collecting outstanding payments is a key issue for CSPs, but how can they add value to the process that not only increases customer satisfaction but also ensures that collections are more successful?
How a CSP interacts and handles a customer who has missed a payment, or showing signs that they are likely to, is critical. The payments and collections process can often damage the healthiest of customer relationships, so operators need to take a longer-term view to minimise the risk of losing the customer.
P
ersonalisation
A one-size-fits-all approach to payments doesn’t work. CSPs should make the procedure for nearing or overdue payments easy and personalised. This has proven to decrease customer churn.
Operators prefer their customers to be on direct debit, but the reality is that up to 15% of direct debits fail each month for organisations that collect regular payments. New and personalised payments channels, such as pay by SMS via a pre-registered card, or online payments, gives the customer choice and necessitates less time on the phone. This approach has been so successful for some mobile operators, that they are now offering these payment methods before the arrears stage.
An important element of this is tracking customer preferences and then using this insight to deliver highly personalised experiences across multiple channels.
With the telecoms market saturated, reducing customer churn is a top priority for operators and improving the collections process will contribute to this. Operators also have a legal requirement to ensure that customers are treated fairly, as set out in the FCA Lending Guidelines.
Conclusion
Operators that want to deliver superior customer experiences have to do so across all channels and seamlessly from all functions within the provider. By having a complete view of their customers, operators can personalise the payments and collections process just as well as they can tailor product offerings.
A fantastic and personalised collections experience can turn what was traditionally a negative process into a rewarding one. This is an important part of a customer-centric and consistent brand experience that encourages loyalty and increases revenues.
By Phil Stark, CEO of TALKINGTECH, a provider of customer engagement and payment technology solutions.
