September 30, 2020
As per a 2020 report, 59% of global population are internet users and the average time spent per day on internet is 6 hours & 42 minutes.
With the Covid pandemic, telecom operators saw major spike in data usage and some network operators also saw internet & network downtime due to heavy usage during initial days of lockdown.
Telecom operators today are focusing heavily on 5G and diversified opportunities to provide a gamut of services including but not limiting to Cellular, Data, Broadband, IPTVs, Fixed line, IoT & Smarthome solutions to increase ARPU.
While this being said, customer retention still remains a challenge due to cut throat competition and luring offers and interactive customer experience can prove to be a major differentiator.
Interactive customer experience delivers a crucial role in customer retention. Basis a research 52% customers said that they’re ready to pay higher for speedy & efficient customer experience.
Superior Experience is an outcome of Effective Engagement
Interactive Customer Experience Trends in Telecom
Mixed Reality Support
We’re all aware of multiple mediums of support such as Email & Call. From a digital perspective, brands are also helping customers via Chat & Social media; but wait, what’s next. What’s the future of tech support.
The answer is mixed reality.
Let me share an example of an incident that occurred a couple of month ago – I ordered a smart TV for my parents who live a different city. I told them about the things that they could do starting from getting local news to listening to their favourite songs and getting general information all at the command of their voice and much more. Little did I know that setting up this smart TV would be a nightmare for them.
It first started with them explaining me things over the call, followed by sending pictures over whatsapp but all efforts in vain. Finally, I got on a video call with them and asked them to point the camera towards the TV and the remote and instructed them with the installation steps and they were up & running in minutes.
This is the future of Mixed Reality. Imagine a customer buying a router or IPTV from a telecom operator and unable to set it up or troubleshooting in cases when an issue arises. Customers can simply fire up the self service app and open the camera which will give step by step instructions along with the next best action that needs to be performed. What’s better is that if the customers are still not able to solve on their own, they can initiate a VoIP call from within the app which connects with a support executive who can ask for a consent based access of the mobile’s camera; once customer grants the access, agent can view and suggest subscriber with steps that need to be performed using whiteboarding.
Cognitive Decision Trees
We’ve all been through a situation where a customer support executive asks us multiple questions and it becomes frustrating as we usually end up answering the same set of questions multiple times to multiple agents across multiple channels. Well, let’s not blame them as they’re simply following a call center script given to them for effective probing
This is where cognitive decision trees can come to the rescue. Imagine that you’re facing data or network downtime on your phone and when you call up the customer support number you’re asked questions such as:
1. “Is mobile data switched on?”
- “How many network bars do you see?”
- “Are you on 3G or 4G?”
- “Did you reset your phone?”
And you usually feel; “Why can’t he check?” or “Am I so dumb that I didn’t do all that”
Now here’s where cognitive decision trees (CDT) come into picture; with tight integrations with your CDR, Billing systems & network systems; it can auto detect the issue and eliminate numerous redundant as well as repetitive probing questions and helps an agent with the next best step to resolve customer issues.
This not just helps in faster resolution that leads to overall better CX but also reduction in operational expenses at contact centers
Self Healing
With great knowledge comes great responsibility. While your agents, field executives and store staff is equipped to resolve customer issues; the idea is how can your self-service app be the 1st point of contact and best support agent.
This can be made possible by making your self service app capable of diagnosing and identifying the issue proactively as soon as it occurs and taking appropriate steps to resolve the issues.
Let’s say that you’re on 4G network and while traveling you’ve exhausted your mobile data and currently you’re travelling without any data on your phone. A smart telecom self service app can identify this and notify you about the same and send you communication to take your consent and to activate an add-on pack.
Not just relying on network or data related issues; you can also equip the app to identify device issues and remotely troubleshoot for issues pertaining to low battery or mobile phone heating up and more.
Above mentioned are few of the steps or strategies that global tier 1 operators are implementing for a better self service experience. These methods are sustainable in the longer run as you do not need to constantly be worried about ramping up your contact centers and field teams to serve customers in an effective manner.
One thing common is also that all these strategies are contactless in nature and have little to zero intervention of human assistance.
Undertaking & deploying such projects also helps position yourself as a digital first telecom operator for today’s connected consumers.