For companies taking an active role in today’s worldwide “mobile communications revolution”, the Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the biggest event of the season and some might say, the entire year. Idomoo is getting ready for show time!
Telecommunication companies, in particular, have reached a phase where transformation and an investment in customer experience is a must if they are to remain competitive in the field.
In the digital age, with multiple vendors providing essentially the same product or suite of services to customers, it’s important for those in more competitive industries like telecommunications to implement marketing and advertising campaigns that will help them to stand out and emotionally engage their customers.
Here’s what we’ve learned from our partners in the telecommunications world about the need for personalization and higher levels of engagement in order to retain customers and overcome the high churn rates that are common in the telecom industry:
Acquisition of New Customers is Expensive
According to KISSmetrics, it costs 7 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Customer acquisition requires intensive marketing and advertising programs that require planning and execution across multiple channels. These are costly and drive low ROI. As potential clients start entering the first part of the marketing funnel, the ability to track them and entice them through the funnel using pricy advertising campaigns or by contacting them through direct calling or promotions constitutes a tremendous amount of work for companies. These efforts may include multiple marketing teams, external agencies, or both. In short, acquiring new customers is important for every business, but keeping current customers satisfied is much more economical.
Another important benefit to customer retention is the increase that the brand will be witnessing over time in subscriber average revenue per user (ARPU) as well.
Investing Time and Effort into Customer Retention is Crucial
Another positive side effect of investments in customer retention is that happy customers are the best marketing and sales channels for your brand. If your customers are happy with the services they are getting and are receiving incentives for working with you, it increases the likelihood that they will recommend your product or service to others. “Word-of-mouth” marketing always pays off. Turn your clients into brand ambassadors, measure NPS and apply continuous improvements to processes accordingly. Invest in social media, emotional campaigns, personal event greetings and customer engagement programs that your customers will be happy to take part in.
Build the Right Mix of Customer Channels
During every step of the customer’s journey, telecommunications companies should aim for profound and powerful personalized customer communication that will emotionally connect customers to their brands. This helps to establish and strengthen brand affinity and loyalty.
Proactively Minimize Calls to Contact Centers
A recent study from the Database Marketing Institute shows that if a customer is personally contacted by his telecom provider to address his concerns about billing before he has the chance to make the call himself, the likelihood of retaining him as a customer is dramatically higher since he will see himself as one of your “valued clients”.
Provide a clear visualized explanation of the customer’s monthly bill that is more likely to be viewed and understood. Minimize clients’ questions in advance, clear up any misunderstanding before it arises, show your customer that you are 100% transparent with regard to your monthly charges.
What Personalized Videos Can Do to Help Delight Current Customers and Attract New Ones
Many telecommunications companies across the world are using Idomoo’s Personalized Video Engagement Platform to interact with their customers in a unique, engaging and exciting way. The results are breathtaking and really show the value of this medium for engaging new customers and retaining older ones as well. Here’s how personalized video helped one of our clients – a leading US telecommunications company:
Optimizing the Onboarding Process: Cricket Telecom
In order to reduce churn and increase ARPU, one of our biggest US telco customers has created an annual personalized video communication plan that has helped clients better understand their billing process, introduce complementary products, celebrate personal occasions, and build an overall emotional connection with the subscriber. Idomoo suggested that in order to best reach out to clients, they would focus on the value they added more than just focusing on the billing information of customers’ individual accounts. Videos presented a campaign called “LLIB” or “Let’s Look Inside your Bucket” showing the client the services they received, complementary products and saving ideas in a humoristic and fun way.
Smoothing customers’ onboarding process and contacting them through a personalized video campaign throughout the year resulted in a reduction in early churn by 37% and a significant increase in Cricket’s Net Promoter Score.
Interested in learning more about the power of personalized video for telecom? Pop by our booth at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from March 2-5, 2015. We’ll be located in area 2D50. To schedule an appointment with us, please fill out this form.
