The FCC reports that “one in six cell phone users has experienced bill shock. Among those who have experienced it, few were alerted by carriers that it was coming – before or after the bill arrived." As a result, the FCC and CTIA have come to an agreement requiring wireless providers to provide free alerts for voice, data, and text within a year of October 2011.
Why has it come to this?
Instead of the outcry of customers, why does it take government and industry organizations to spur wireless providers to take action to improve their service and avoid negative backlash?
As with most things in this industry, it’s complicated. The steep growth of wireless caused most providers to focus almost exclusively on building infrastructure and acquiring customers to keep up with the competition, rather than focusing on the customers they already have. Recently, the tide has turned. It seems that nearly every wireless service provider has glommed on to the term "customer experience." That is, they are consciously focused on retaining customers by setting expectations and then consistently delivering upon them – which includes the delivery of excellent service, and personalized, proactive engagement based on a customer’s individual needs. For those who are truly committed to enhancing the customer experience, addressing bill shock in the right way can be the start of a game changer.
Getting It Right
Some carriers are already addressing overages for specific use-cases – international roaming notices, nearing data allotment, etc. Those who are not utilizing any voice or text alerts say they are moving quickly to put those in place.
The question is – which wireless providers will view this new requirement as a bigger opportunity? Who will leverage this as a chance to apply technology to engage customers more broadly with personalized alerts and communication that collectively and over time drive significant benefit? With sophisticated, real-time data analysis and automation, providers can uncover a myriad of relevant outreach opportunities based on a deep understanding of behaviors and network events. A provider can define optimal thresholds and alert contexts in order to send the right message at the right time and place. By stepping back and looking at the big picture, providers have a chance to influence customer behavior based on real-time contextual alerts, but how many will do so?
A happy mobile customer commented recently on the value of a T-Mobile alert on the Consumerist site, “Just last month I called T-Mobile to jump on the $10 data plan for 200MB to try and save a few bucks on my bill and a few weeks later I went well over the 200MB. A [customer service] rep from T-Mobile called me a day before my bill closed for the month and asked if I would like to jump on the unlimited data plan for $20 a month and they would also date the plan to the beginning of the month to save me the $60 in overages for data. I love T-Mobile and the [customer service] agents."
The benefits of this happy customer are threefold: (1) they will stay with T-Mobile and not churn, (2) they are paying more each month, and (3) they are talking publicly about their delight. This customer has in no uncertain terms become a “net promoter." Wireless providers have a great opportunity here to be the good guy, to set appropriate expectations with their customers, and have an ongoing dialogue with them throughout their lifecycle, and not just at times of emergency but at any time that information – whether marketing, educational, billing, or network related – would be deemed relevant. Some examples of these communications follow:
- Acknowledgement of dropped calls. Network performance is often a reason for churn, yet research has shown that most consumers don’t call to complain – they just leave eventually. Most operators measure their network quality according to how well their cell towers perform. For the customer, it’s the dropped calls that matter. Operators should be monitoring each customer’s experience as it relates to service quality and determining the appropriate threshold for dropped calls. Going a step further, they should be sending an apology and offering a credit at the time it really matters.
- Recommendation for a new plan. Customers often wonder whether they should be on a different rate plan, yet research will tell you that the majority don’t believe their carrier proactively acts on their behalf. Through in-depth analysis of an individual’s behavior over time, operators can determine the right plan to recommend and when. Being proactive about rate-plan optimization can have a positive impact on customer revenue and attitude and advocacy.
- Check in to make sure everything is OK. Nearly every operator has reviewed the numbers which indicate – customers buy a new smart phone, sign up for a data plan, and 60 days later they churn. Yet how many operators focus on stimulating usage by reinforcing the value of mobile data? Whether it’s offering device tips and tricks, or alerting customers to free content, operators should be proactively checking in with customers and delivering the right communications to increase data usage. After all, getting customers accustomed to and dependent on mobile data means a better chance of retaining them.
An intelligent analytics system that can power contextual alerts gives providers the opportunity to monitor any event that would potentially impair the customer experience. The right solution for the alerts requirement is not a short-term fix with manual modeling. The best solution will involve a system that incorporates machine learning to define common behaviors and appropriate thresholds, predictive modeling to anticipate future behaviors and needs, and monitoring mechanisms to identify variances from defined behaviors. With real-time data as the input and relevant communications as the output, contextual alerting can provide operators an entirely new way to educate, notify, satisfy, market to and retain customers.
Billing Is an Asset
Analysts and CEOs across the industry are defining customer experience and emphasizing the need to care for customers across their entire lifecycle. What better way to do this than by taking the massive amounts of data that wireless providers have on customer behavior and apply it to a higher, more sophisticated and smarter level of customer service. On telecomseurope.net, TM Forum editor Susana Schwartz put it well, “To engage customers and entice them to consume more, billing and charging capabilities have to evolve to accommodate people’s ever-changing usage patterns, circumstances, behaviors and preferences. Or, better yet, billing and charging should become strategic assets that actually drive people’s patterns and behaviors in new directions."
Overage alerts should not be the end game. Alerts should be the start to a positive, ongoing conversation with the customer. Wireless providers know they must become more actively attuned to customers’ individual needs. Alerts can be based on any collected data attribute, and operators have plenty – there is no shortage of customer data. There is, however, a shortage of analysis, contextualization, and application of the data. And yet this is key to being aware of and acting on a full range of events that may impair – or improve – each customer’s experience.
Let’s promise that this be the last externally imposed regulation on bill shock. If we get this right, the only shock that a customer should feel is wonder at the usefulness, ease, and support of their mobile device, its service, and the provider.
Lara Albert is senior director, global marketing at Globys. Leading Globys’ corporate and product marketing initiatives, Albert has been responsible for the launch of Globys’ customer experience solutions while focusing on building awareness of Globys among today’s leading communications service providers worldwide. Prior to Globys, Albert was responsible for product marketing and strategy for the Billing & Commerce group at VeriSign.
