Sizo Nkosi, Partnerships Manager at Infobip.

Most customer facing businesses today have recognised the need to digitally transform and adopt customer engagement solutions that will enhance customer experiences well as market competitiveness, and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) are no different in this sense. ,.

MNOs are no strangers to fierce competition having had to up their game over the years, as they faced increasing competition from over-the-top (OTT) providers. Digital transformation then, as now has proved an effective levelling up mechanism, enabling enterprises to be more agile and in tune with customer communication habits, and expectations.

However digitalising processes that require a 360 view of a customer is often complex for MNOs that typically operate with disparate departments each dealing with large amounts of subscribers. There is usually no unified communication tool that alerts the telco which departments are talking to a particular customer on a particular topic at a particular time. But indeed, this is the sort of information that a customer now expects providers to have on them.

Operators are aware of the shortfalls that a siloed approach creates in terms of customer experience and are increasingly looking to deploy the appropriate communication solutions that will add a level of automation with transparency which would contribute to improving the entire customer journey. At the same time, this would lower churn rates for better customer retention which would give them a competitive advantage.

Building reputation

Digitalisation improves MNOs’ internal processes and customer satisfaction, because it helps businesses better meet the communication needs of end users, it’s a simple equation and fast becoming a necessity for organisations. At the same time, a successful customer engagement strategy becomes a reputation builder for the MNO.

Operators are communication infrastructure providers that want to be seen as pushing cutting edge innovation by providing a layer of solutions on top of their infrastructure, instead of just being mere connectivity providers. Thus, operators are increasingly looking at becoming agile and in tune with the latest market and technology developments.

MNOs should focus on deploying multi-channel customer engagement tools in their contact centres that cater for the improvement of four pillars of the business:

• Increasing net promoter score, which measures customer experience and predicts business growth.
• Reducing costs and improving efficiencies by bringing down the costs of running a contact centre and introducing automation.
• Increasing revenue growth by boosting customer satisfaction that will result in higher average revenue per user (ARPU).
• Increasing the employee net promoter score by improving the management of communications between the customer and service agent, thus increasing staff morale.

What customers expect

For network operators, ramping up their digitisation and customer experience efforts to heighten competitiveness is all about offering the experience and journey that customers are expecting. On the one hand, cloud-based communication channels can reduce contact centre overheads by optimising internal resources and driving revenue through subscriber acquisition. On the other hand, these technologies meet the needs of the subscriber by responding to their engagement expectations.

However, most MNOs are not geared towards developing and implementing these solutions themselves, so consulting a suitable technology partner is key to adopting a multi-channel contact centre communication platform.

Most importantly, a vendor must be able to help simplify the network operator’s ecosystem, and this is best done through an omni-channel communication approach that can be supported on a single platform. It is also key that the technology provider can ensure an individualised set-up of the solution so that it meets the requirements of the specific operator. A one-size-fits-all strategy rarely works when the aim is to implement a solution that will enable a customer-centric approach.

The right technology mix

From a technology perspective, a suitable partner should be able to provide the right mix of channels and tools. For example, if a particular chat app is the most used communication channel in a particular country, be sure that the vendor can provide it as part of their solution.

But while there are many technology options for managing customer communications and for enhancing engagement between the telco and subscriber throughout their lifecycle with the company, technology should not be the only consideration.

A huge differentiator when picking a technology provider is their track record and reputation. While a newcomer to the market might claim to have extensive capabilities, it might turn out that this is not the case. It is always helpful to look at a solution provider’s previous clients to gauge what offerings they can realistically deliver.

Ultimately, whether you are an MNO or any other enterprise, you should be looking at forging a long-term partnership that will guide your digital transformation journey and shape your customer engagement strategy to boost customer experience and gain a competitive edge.