One of the most customer-dependent industries is telecommunication. That’s why the majority of US telecom companies occasionally come up with creative ideas to attract customers. One of those ideas is to transform a quote from the Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.” What a telecom company did is put it this way, “If you build it, they will call.” In that sentence lies the ultimate truth. Within the telecommunication industry’s context, the “it” in the expression refers to customer experience – an indicator of success. So, if a telecom company builds a customer experience, customers will definitely call them. Eventually, that telecom company can become the top telecommunication company. Nevertheless, everyone needs to dig deeper into the customer-centric philosophy behind telecom companies to do so. So, let’s see what that philosophy is all about.
How to Approach Customers?
“When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed on the farm. But as vehicles started to be used in urban centers, cars became more popular. Innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things that you didn’t care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars,” – Steve Jobs.
Do you notice what approach Apple took? Not only Apple, but Google, eBay, and other giants went for a significant change in how they approach customers. By digging deeper into the art of customer understanding, accessing content that customers like, and integrating breakthrough technological innovations, such companies succeed.
With these three core beliefs, telecommunication companies in California have the opportunity to flourish. When a telecom company like Flagman Telecom has the chance of gathering customer data, the game changes. The company accesses all the possible conclusions that can aid the product development to satisfy customer needs. However, this trending approach is becoming more and more common among consumer groups. This means that sooner or later, such an approach will become too widespread, and newly-emerging companies will struggle in the customer-acquisition battle. But did you know that the battle can be defeated? All you need to do is ensure that the following three aspects are present within your company.
Customer Behavior
Being a company that targets satisfying its customers by delivering the best user experience, Apple investigates customer behavior. As a result, since 2007, when Apple launched the iPhone, they developed the features according to what customers like doing, i.e., listening to music – iTunes. Later in 2010, when Apple started the iAd service, it peaked its popularity as a B2B ad platform. All this means that when a company prioritizes the investigation of customer behavior, it becomes the best in tailoring the product to customer preferences and needs. For instance, Flagman Telecom prioritizes VOIP business phone services. Is that enough? No! Based on customer behavior statistics, the quality, price, Internet availability, etc., are modified to meet customer expectations.
Data Mining
Google has the approach of focusing on the user and everything else will flow. If you’ve noticed, customers never register for Google’s online services. However, it manages to gather IP addresses per search. Afterward, a specific algorithm starts data analysis. For instance, Google Maps collects travel-related consumer data. The whole process through which Google’s data mining procedures occur includes data collection, data analysis, and data interpretation. Thanks to this, Google manages to get into the mind of the consumer and understand what needs to be modified with the product.
Holistic Customer Understanding
In the meantime, eBay aims to “create opportunities for people” – both for buyers and sellers. What it tackles is viewing all types of customers, including buyers and sellers, with a holistic view. eBay’s secret lies in its capability of storing more than 10 petabytes of data and coming up with innovations that exceptionally satisfy customers. Moreover, they implemented “sandboxes,” which allow in-house departments to see all the information in the warehouse. The holistic customer understanding enables eBay to craft the best online experience without deviating the customer from the brand. Such an approach leads the company to become the leading innovator in the field of customer understanding.
The bottom line is that successful companies like eBay, Google, and Apple go for the deep-end understanding of consumer behavior to make the goods and services suitable for the consumer. Even though these are non-telecom examples, this approach always works. The reason is the feeling that customers get after having a more satisfactory product from the brand; however, with US telecom companies, everything is lengthier. The largest telecom companies in the US, like Flagman Telecom, start implementing these approaches to take the industry a step ahead. However, to implement these, US telecom companies try figuring out the process of understanding how data systems work. Afterward, everything will flow.
The Customer-Centric Philosophy
“We have got to look at what customers expect us to do and deliver it. The biggest opportunity is to leverage that. We know if we use data effectively, and give them the right products, services, and added value, it will turn our customers into fans. If we don’t, we will lose them,” – James Morgan.
These days businesses craft their buyer persona, which stands for the ideal customer profile. By understanding who the ideal customer is for the business, one gets the opportunity to deliver the product to its target audience and attach these people to the brand with a long-term objective. Thanks to buyer persona identification, companies craft a loyal customer base because these people see that the brand cares for their wants, needs, and expectations. In short, customers see themselves at the center of the brand, which drives their desire to buy from that particular brand. With such an approach, success comes to the brand and stays with it for good. No matter how market trends shift, success never goes away if the brand keeps its ideal customer profile at the center of operations.
Besides, when a business identifies the ideal customer profile, its customer base never stops growing. The thing is that one ideal customer brings to the business others who fit the profile. Word of mouth works exceptionally well in the telecommunication industry. Plus, when the business knows who its ideal customer is, it always satisfies its ideal customer and never lets him or her go to the competitor. Keep in mind that competition is always tense, and companies ongoingly come up with ideas directed towards gaining competitors’ customers. Having the ideal customer profile identified, you will always be ahead of them no matter what competitors do.
Did you know that telecommunication companies in California viewed customers as a technical challenge in the past era? That’s the reality. At that time, the telecommunication industry was operating as a monopoly and had few providers; that’s why US telecom companies were not concerned about satisfying customer needs and meeting their expectations. The few things they cared for were high profit and a loyal customer base. But we all understand that those times stayed in the past, right? Today, such an approach will bankrupt the telecommunication company. No one wants that!
So, how does everything work so successfully today?
Let’s go over a few facts about customer expectations from the telecommunication industry to understand what telecom companies should do to succeed from a customer-centric point of view.
- 50% of telecom customers will come to the company because of a positive referral.
- 53% of telecom customers signify customer experience in the process of decision-making
- 50% of telecom customers aim to bypass automated service systems because it negatively affects their emotional state
- 63% of telecom customers never expect a follow-up on social media in the case of being dissatisfied by the service of the telecommunication company
- 50% of telecom customers are heavily influenced by social media in the process of decision-making
As it can be seen, to fulfill customer needs and expectations today, US telecom companies need to shift the traditional philosophy of the company and make the customer one of the most important stakeholders. To conduct the shift, every telecom company, especially a top telecommunication company like Flagman Telecom, needs to pass four major stages to integrate customer-centricity into the company culture and operations.
Four Big Stages of Change to Customer-centricity
First Stage
The first stage is called Centralized Operations. At that point, the company just gets to know the customer through data generation, formatting, and frequency. Everything is being conducted consistently, in a single data warehouse. Such acknowledgment of the customer helps the company generate analysis and draw conclusions that will definitely help the progression of the marketing and sales departments. Plus, the company gets to know its customer to implement apt market strategies.
Second Stage
The telecommunication company enters the second stage of the change process, where it starts integrating functional units. This means that companies start implementing campaigns and strategizing those to make them work more efficiently. At this stage, one of the most important things to consider is customer-centric KPIs. It is an important indicator to understand how satisfied customers are. With customer-centric KPIs, it is crucial to put them all over the executive board for everyone to responsibly follow them. Customer touchpoints – these will define how successful departments did their work, and in the case of not meeting those, they have the opportunity to analyze customer profiles all over again and repeat the process.
Third Stage
The third stage sets a start to the interaction between the centralized and functional teams. If the information flowed in one direction, it now starts circulating in all possible directions. The teams start predicting future customer behavior and start giving less attention to the already-captured consumer behavior data. Prior to the third stage, all the campaigns are optimized regarding what customers already know they want and need, and expect. At this stage, campaigns are created to explore customer reactions and design customer retention programs.
Fourth Stage
The final stage of customer-centricity is all about achieving the full shift in customer philosophy. Not only do centralized and functional teams interact with working processes, but day-to-day processes also start working according to customer knowledge. In short, at this stage, the whole company operates customer-centrically, which indicates the final integration of customer-centricity into the company culture.
Final Note
Even though there is no concrete formula to achieve success as a telecommunication company, a top telecommunication company like Flagman Telecom has already integrated its unique customer-centric philosophy into the company culture. And their customer-centrism explains why their customers love the VOIP phone system they serve. Moreover, they consider it the best VOIP phone service. The secret lies in their understanding of customer behavior, apt predictions of customer reactions, and to-the-point fulfillment of customer expectations.
