Some would argue that this has something to do with Sprint's penchant for offering unlimited data plans, or its new acquisition of the iPhone. Williams, however, credits the carrier's enhanced standing among customers to its more aggressive customer analytics strategy.
Other Useful Benefits
And the possible benefits of enhanced customer analytics don't stop at increasing satisfaction and reducing churn. Knowing what your customers are doing and where can aid in smart network planning, for example. Service providers can understand where an additional tower might have the biggest impact, and where it would be underused, allowing for smart growth.
Furthermore, in an era of sophisticated fraud and malice attempts, a proactive analytics strategy can aid in fraud prevention, as well as increased customer satisfaction. For instance, Mobistar, a mobile provider in the Benelux region, has used Lavastorm Analytics's analytics platforms to monitor and address fraud, ranging from identity to usage to payment fraud. If you know what all of your customers are doing, you also have the capability of knowing what users are doing wrong, which is very valuable information.
In addition, an understanding of customer habits can help you shape your plans in a way that suit customer needs and wants. Gunner, who calls these companies "enlightened souls", offers that this is one end of the continuum of customer analytics usage. "There are also the not-so-enlightened souls who are saying, 'Engineering: Find a way to get them to do what we want them to do,' which is what drove all the deep packet inspection and traffic management deployments. " Either way, higher levels of customer awareness are desirable.
Going from 'Trusted' to 'Loved'
In addition to all of these valuable, practical use cases, customer analytics can be viewed as a part of a larger approach to creating genuine customer loyalty.
Whereas other types of fault management and overall quality management can help service providers to be trusted, Rockwell claims that being trusted, alone, isn't enough.
"That's ten years ago. If you think about where the industry's going, they're so much more interested in fan-based, thumbs-up relationships," he says, noting that many of the top carriers are more interested in that approach. "It's more than trust. It's creating loyalty." Rockwell argues that analytics are central to developing that sense of loyalty, as they can aid in the understanding of the root causes of both positive and negative customer behavior. Analytics can help CSPs understand what's driving customers to them, Rockwell says, "or, conversely, what's driving people away from [them]."
This may get a little mushy for some, but whether the end goal is undying customer loyalty or simply a more evolved iteration of SQM, understanding your customers through useful, easy-to-use, actionable analytics is something that many smart CSPs are finding well worth the effort.
