Optimizing Digital Customer Experiences in Telecom
Over the last two decades, there has been a notable shift towards online retailing for both consumers and businesses. The telecommunications sector is no exception, with approximately 46% of all US telecommunications retail market transactions taking place online – a number that is only expected to grow (online transactions are expected to reach 57% by 2028)1.
Knowing that, it’s crucial to build engaging online channels with a positive digital customer experience (CX) at the forefront for businesses to keep up with evolving customer demands and drive growth.
Why Is an Exceptional Digital Customer Experience Important?
Seamless user experiences (UX) on digital platforms are essential to the entire customer journey, from lead generation to upsell opportunities, and even more so now than ever as telcos seek to expand beyond traditional connectivity products and offer services such as IoT and cloud services.
The diversification beyond traditional connectivity products is fuelled by declining margins for core business products, coupled with an opportunity for telcos to sell technology products as an add-on – a sample of 16 operators found contribution of revenues beyond traditional core telecoms increased from 18% in 2017 to 26% in 20222.
Consequently, optimized digital channels can strengthen customer relationships and create future upsell opportunities, ultimately increasing customer share of wallet.
The ROI of enhancing digital platforms spans beyond upsell opportunities, including improved customer satisfaction and retention, operational efficiency gains, and revenue growth. Studies suggest that improving customer satisfaction through strategies like personalization can reduce churn by 10-15% in the B2B market3.
Furthermore, digital platforms can achieve operational efficiency by automating customer journeys and reducing the need for customer support teams. Improving digital platforms may also facilitate easy expansion to new customer bases and markets, boosting sales and revenue.
Together with their business value, the growing traffic on digital platforms highlights the importance of developing platforms with seamless UX and strong conversion opportunities. To achieve this, however, will require the strategic leveraging of relevant data and insights.
Leveraging Data to Create an Optimal Ecomm User Experience
Now that we’ve gone over the significance of a well-developed digital ecosystem and a robust ecommerce platform in delivering an exceptional digital customer experience, let’s dive into actionable strategies for leveraging data to achieve these goals.
Monitoring platform performance and implementing A/B testing to improve conversion rates
Businesses can track user journeys to better understand customer pain points and improve conversion rates. For example, on ecomm platforms, businesses may monitor the number of users visiting homepages, product pages, and checkout pages to identify areas of low conversion. Finding these can help inform targeted platform improvements such as increasing prominence of product pages or simplification of the checkout process.
Additionally, businesses may implement A/B testing to evaluate and improve conversion rates. In doing so, businesses can test various order journeys, website layouts, and call-to-actions to identify the most effective platform design to improve customer conversion.
Using user profile data to enhance user experiences through tailored platform features
Collecting user profile data provides insights that businesses should leverage to create relevant and personalized platform experiences. For example, understanding user device type can inform platform feature design – platforms with a high share of desktop users may seek to minimize white space and include interactive click features, whereas platforms with high mobile traffic will benefit from mobile-focused features like push notifications and SMS.
Moreover, data can be used to provide tailored promotions and products, whether that’s promoting university discounts for platforms that attract a large share of students or promoting faster broadband speeds in densely populated city centers.
Getting Started with Foundation Work for Data Mining and Reporting
Facilitating improvements in digital UX and conversion rates require businesses to adopt a well-defined approach to data mining and reporting.
To start, internal teams must coordinate to ensure relevant pages and platforms are tagged, enabling accurate data capture. Businesses should also perform a comprehensive assessment of analytics tools to select one that aligns with their needs, while remaining cost-effective and easy to implement.
Finally, to extract actionable insights from the data collected, businesses must establish a reporting function (e.g., an interactive dashboard), to track performance, measure against KPIs, and identify areas for improvement.
Implementing a robust approach to data analytics will enable telecom businesses to evolve their digital platforms to foster a seamless user experience, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction and driving sales.
Contact Cartesian
Cartesian works with telecoms operators of every size to help deliver on these types of initiatives, and we can help you identify and realize your ambitions, too. Please contact us to learn more about how we can support your digital growth strategy and more.
1 “eCommerce online share of the total Telecommunications market in the U.S”. ECDB.
2 “From telco to digital telco: navigating trends and drivers shaping revenue growth beyond connectivity”. GSMA. Dec 2023.
3 “Finding the Right Digital Balance in B2B Customer Experience”. McKinsey. 2020.
