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watch it, maybe they pay $1 to view it, and then another $3 if they want to own it. For making that happen, I get points in an account that helps me get some free stuff pretty quickly. Now I’m monetizing my social network while the CSP leverages viral marketing of its services.
Here’s another idea that I alluded to in last month’s issue. A communications bill, especially a wireless bill, says a lot about a person. My friend Adam calls lots of different people. He has a pretty large social network, only parts of which are manifested on Facebook or LinkedIn. His wireless carrier knows who those people are, or at least knows their phone numbers, based on the usage detail from Adam’s bill. My CSP also knows that Adam loves to send text and email from his Blackberry, to use apps that help him find special stores and restaurants in Manhattan, and to run Google searches. What they might not know is that he has a property management business that enables and encourages him to expand his social network at all times.
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I want to make it easy for customers to pay me. |
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The beauty of this approach is that it doesn’t require a massive IT transformation or customer data migration. All the info a CSP needs is on the bills it sends out every month. A consolidated charging infrastructure with a process for getting very well defined bits of information back to the right customer accounts is necessary, but that’s a solution that’s commercially available, well defined, and can be delivered with relatively little risk and time commitment. It certainly would cost far less than a transformation program and deliver tangible results.
The Bottom Line for CIOs and ISVs
As Convergys argues, the business case for convergence may be built best on cost reduction. Sell the initiative to the CFO and the Board as a way to move cost out of the business and make it easier and cheaper to collect revenue. Sell it to the marketing folks and business owners as a way to help them
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He should be encouraged to teach people in his social network how to use their Blackberrys and various applications the way he does. He loves to show off his gadgets and would do so more often if he was paid for it with something of value to him – like credit for more apps, free text messages or megabytes, or special discounts on trendy restaurants in SoHo. If the people on his wireless bill started to take up his favorite services after Adam received a promotional incentive, he should get credit for it. That drives loyalty. That encourages use. And it helps monetize the viral, social media effect that various Internet players invented but haven’t yet turned into revenue or profit.
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monetize Internet models and drive sales, customer acquisition and loyalty. Then wow the Board down the road when you show them that you’re generating new revenue and loyalty, and have cut and restrained costs, by using your converged charging infrastructure as well as the billing and usage data you already have in-house. With this kind of approach, IT becomes the little lever that moves the world rather than the giant sledgehammer that destroys it.
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