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Customer Centricity is data enabled

By Chris Welburn

August 26, 2020 | min

Telcos must harness the power of enterprise cloud computing to become truly customer-centric.

Cloud-enabled data platforms provide major telecoms providers with the ability to analyze data in a myriad of ways that will help improve customer retention and therefore improve business performance. For the first time, all areas of the telecoms business can coalesce around examining business issues and customer insights. The technology is empowering business to cull vital information and gain a competitive advantage. The latest generation of enterprise cloud computing tools provides the bedrock for world-class customer service.  

Taking an integrated approach to enterprise computing can help businesses overcome challenges posed by established business operational lines, information silos, and process routines. In the hard-fought battleground of telecommunications services, it is vital to be at the forefront of customer-centricity. 

For the paying customer, the business lines, suppliers, and internal challenges of a telecom organization have no meaning; they want to instantly gain access to new offers or have issues resolved instantly.  As a result, all parts of the organization have to take responsibility for delivery and customer care.  

Enterprise cloud computing provides the flexibility and power to ensure that every team and component of the telecoms organization can work together. Telecom service provision is complex, but working together need not be. A recent report from business advisory leaders McKinsey highlighted how leading telecoms providers that are well known for their customer service have combined data from the network with customer data to predict any churn or service issues and delight the customer. These same organizations are now using propensity models to predict and proactively respond to a customer that could churn to another operator. As a result, network key performance indicators (KPIs) have modernized away from network reliability and moved towards customer experience. The result, network engineers and front line salespeople are measured in the same way.  

Measuring all members of the organization by the same metric and giving all of those teams easy access to customer and network data ensures the telecoms operator can develop cross-functional teams. Across the telecoms sector and other vertical markets, cross-functional teams improve collaboration within the enterprise while also providing a single view of the value the customer receives. 

A further benefit of the cross-functional enterprise is that together teams can ensure they are always aware of and working towards customer-centric outcomes. The digital customer of today expects simple digital experiences at each and every touchpoint they have with the organization. Only by working together can all members of the organization see how their processes can create unnecessary barriers to the customer. Enterprise cloud computing helps enables this way of working and provides the tools for rapidly removing those barriers.  

As the telecoms organization removes barriers, it can also begin the vital process of digitizing the entire customer journey, which will deliver significant cost savings and further improve data-led operations. In its research paper, “The building blocks telcos need to create their digital - and - analytics DNA,” McKinsey highlights that it is important to digitize both customer-facing and operational processes of the organization in tandem. The challenge is that this requires a complete transformation of the organization’s mindset.

It is important to digitize both customer facing and operational processes of the organization in tandem. The challenge is that this requires a complete transformation of the mindset of the organization.

McKinsey

The digitization of society and so many business models is built on mobility and the valuable networks that have enabled this major shift in society. Data-led customer centricity using the latest enterprise cloud computing provides telecom operators with the opportunity to harness a new level of insight. The technology already exists for telecom operators to have real-time insight into customer behavior.  

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