Digital is the new frontier in the telecom industry with digital transformation projects becoming a commonality among telcos, but what exactly is a digital telecom ?
A good starting would be defining what is NOT a digital telecom, A telecom that requires direct interaction between customers and its employees can not be classified as a digital telecom.
A telecom that requires direct interaction between the user and its employees can not be classified as a digital telecom.
A digital telco is a telco that allows customers to enjoy the service without having to think or deal with the telco itself. In the digital world a service provider biggest differentiator is being invisible. Digital telcos don’t try to improve the quality of their call centers they eliminate them all together.
Call centers have no place in the digital services era. The services offered to the customer should be built from the ground up to cater for self-service, customers shouldn’t need anybody to help them complete certain tasks, CallCenters were created in a time when the technology fell short from achieving true customer autonomy certain tasks were simply too hard to automate and thus required that human touch.
Too hard to automate? have someone do it
Technology has gone a long way since these days and digital experiences are now possible and accessible. A good example of a digital experience is gmail, it requires little effort from the user with minimal friction with the service provider, gmail users rarely if ever require any support from Google, there is little a user can’t do online using few clicks.
Digital telcos are typically cheaper to run and operate as most of the operational expenses are minimized or even eliminated, this allows for cheaper rates and affording a higher customer acquisition cost (as in pampering potential customers). Digitizing the user end experience can be conducted by focusing on the following fronts:
- Online :
- No interaction with employees should be required, Everything should be available online.
- The sale process should be offered online with most of the sales happening through the online channel.
- Mobile :
- Customers should be able to fulfill all of their needs using their devices, no task should be too hard or too complicated to be conducted using the customer’s mobile device. This requires building everything from the ground up with that in mind, customer’s should be able to see his account information, buy services, even terminate his line using his device.
- The entire experience should be contained within a single application, even when the customer transitions to a web-shop this should be done transparently and offering a consistent look and feel.
- Digital Store :
- Since most of the sales is targeted to be conducted online the digital store should be in the center of the customer experience.
- Drawing from the accumulated knowledge by eCommerce sites such as amazon and ebay to offer the customer a truly tailed experience based on his usage history and segmentation.
- Social:
- Social networks can be seen as a platform rather than websites, value can be derived by building on top of them.
- Social promos can be created (such as Member Get Member promos) to motivate users to organically share their experience with the product.
A good example of a digital telco is the company I’m currently engaged with, feel free to check out the experience we are offering http://www.Jawwy.sa
