• Log in
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact us
Telecoms IT News - VanillaPlus
  • Home
  • News
  • Verticals
    • 4G
    • 5G News
    • Big data analytics
    • Bill & Charge
    • CEM
    • Companies
    • Digital transformation
    • Fraud prevention
    • Managed services
    • Network optimisation
    • NFV Hub
    • OSS
    • People
    • Policy
    • Revenue assurance
    • Revenue management
    • Service assurance
    • Service Provisioning
    • Test & measurement
  • Digital Edition
  • Events
    • Events diary
    • Webinars
  • Videos
  • VP Featured
    • Webinars
    • Podcast
    • Editorial advisory board
    • Expert opinions
    • Hot List
    • Operator View
    • Press releases
    • Reports & whitepapers
    • Special reports
    • Talking Heads
    • Troubleticket
    • Digital Talking Heads
  • Directory
  • Trending Tech
  • Subscribe
 

You are here:

  • Home
  • Business & Markets
  • What is customer engagement and is it the new black?

What is customer engagement and is it the new black?

13 November, 2018 at 2:56 PM

Posted by: Anasia D'mello

What is customer engagement and is it the new black?

In competitive markets, product and price innovation are often yesterday’s news. In fact, in the telco market, the sort of ‘innovative’ offers long designed to attract new customers have increasingly been anything but innovative. Consider the industry standard bandwidth and/or minutes increase, says Adhish Kulkarni of Evolving Systems.

Given both the ease of switching between carriers (facilitated by changing regulatory standards around the globe) and the simplicity of one telco matching another’s offer, the reality is they don’t work.

The question for telcos is ‘what does’? How can relationships with customers be reinvented in a way that does deliver the required results: Increased ROI, lower churn and beyond. We believe that the next frontier for strategic differentiation is customer engagement. This is based on the precept that today’s consumers expect service providers to do more than just offer competitively priced, reliable and attractive products; they also expect their providers to be responsive, flexible and to know just what they need.

Young people in particular assume they can have a personalised and seamless dialogue with a company across multiple channels at a time that suits them. Meeting these expectations, whereby customer engagement and service innovation become key strategic differentiators in a fast-commoditising market, is both a challenge and an opportunity for telcos.

As one carrier told us, this means that the entire customer relationship needs to be rewired with the goal of creating something that, rather than just being remunerative, is emotionally engaging. As the telco in question itself puts it, a move from transactions to emotions.

Adhish Kulkarni

One key shift with this mindset is that brand positioning is a major component of enhancing emotional experience. If marketing programs can utilise the brand effectively, there is evidence that they will create more valuable and enduring customer relationships as well as creating programs that are much harder for competitors to copy.

These relationships also have to extend across entire subscriber bases, ending the perception that telcos chase new subscribers but pay little attention to existing customers. The goal should be for the telco to turn its existing subscribers into brand ambassadors.

What’s needed to take this step? How do you interact and engage with a subscriber base in a new way to deliver an innovative personalised experience? Among the requirements are:

  • Having the ability to communicate with the right customer at the right time and reward them in the right way. This is easy to say but not easy to do.
  • Customer engagement technology that meshes seamlessly with CRM.
  • The ability to define the best moment of contact with the customer…..and then execute.
  • Ideally, to drive digitisation, the ability to run engagement programs through mobile applications. This should drive a significant number of downloads, a vital component of a company’s digital transformation process.

What the telco is really after here is something so personalised that it creates an emotional experience rather than the traditional approach that might be described as ‘linear and rational’. Instead of ‘reward’, think ‘surprise and delight’.

The author of this blog is Adhish Kulkarni heads the customer value management and loyalty business unit organisation for Evolving Systems, an end-to-end digital engagement software and services provider

Comment on this article below or via Twitter: @VanillaPlus OR @jcvplus


category: Business & Markets, Digital transformation, Telco Cloud, Troubleticket

Tags: Adhish Kulkarni, CRM, Evolving Systems, ROI, Telco

VanillaPlus Q4 Magazine
 

VanillaPlus Issue 4 2022: CSP focus turns to generating revenue from enterprises

As 5G arrives, private networks start to gather momentum and new applications enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and software-based network control transform telecoms. VanillaPlus caught up with Sam Barker, the head of analytics and forecasting at Juniper Research, to understand where the opportunities lie for communications service providers (CSPs).

READ NOW

Comments are closed.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Subscribe
Relax time
Read the new novel by J.J. Cowan on Africa’s conflict minerals trade and forced labour. 5* Reviews on Amazon.co.uk Paperback & Kindle

Check out on Amazon

X

Be the first to know!

  • The top telecom IT news stories of the minute
    in your inbox
  • Exclusive offers for entry into hundreds of
    events worldwide
  • Free access to a huge selection of the latest
    analyst reports and whitepapers
Subscribe now so you don't miss out
Don’t show me this again
Please check your email
x
Vanillaplus - The Global Voice of Telecoms IT
The Global Voice of Telecoms IT

VanillaPlus is the world-leading resource covering digital transformation for the communications industry. VanillaPlus brings you exclusive News, Expert Views, and Event Reviews. See Interviews from CEOs, CTOs, and COOs who are successfully transforming their business today.

Connect

Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn

NEWS

  • Latest Telecoms IT news

DIGITAL EDITION

  • Latest Editions

OTHER

  • Newsletters [Archive]

KNOWLEDGE CENTRE

  • Webinars
  • Special Reports
  • Talking Heads
  • Editorial Advisory Board

COMPANY

  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

PARTNERS

  • IoT News

© 2014-2022 VanillaPlus - The global voice for telecoms IT. All rights reserved.