Carrying out a personalized experience means understanding how a customer’s location affects his or her choices. Presence is already a common feature in social networks, helping users to organize the ever-increasing amount of data they contend with on a daily basis. Likewise, location-based searches are more valuable than ever since smartphones now function as both the Yellow Pages and personal GPS. For video services, telepresence should be integrated into the mix; one method would be to suggest specific programs based on how many of a customer’s friends are currently watching them. Gamers like to know when their friends are online too, which is presence in action.

The power of presence also extends to third-party advertising relationships. Sending contextual offers for cheap local pizza to a male customer exiting a sporting event makes sense. But serving up an ad for women’s fur coats to a male vegan? Not so smart.

Customers may wish to opt in for these kinds of incentives, creating a win-win for mobile operators. Groupon, for example, is an opt-in service that effectively leverages customer presence to suggest offers based on time of day, location and personal profile. Innovative CSPs could combine a presence-based incentives program with their loyalty program to furnish a truly personalized, high-value service to their customers.

The CEM equation

Even if quantifying the positive impact of CEM is difficult, the cost of not improving the customer experience in today’s ultra-competitive climate is enormous. Global executives polled in Oracle’s latest CEM study predicted that their potential revenue loss for not providing a positive, consistent, brand-relevant customer experience would be 20 percent of their annual revenue, e.g., a $400 million loss for a $2 billion firm.

The leaders in fiercely competitive industries have embraced personalization as the path forward, and the presence layer is more and more a part of their strategies. If CSPs don’t move quickly, companies from outside of telecom will own a significant slice of the mobile revenue chain.

Full-life-cycle, end-to-end, real-time personalization platforms that incorporate the presence layer present an attractive game plan for differentiation in telecommunications. Customers want service packages that reflect their unique needs, not buckets. They want seamless access to their accounts across multiple channels, and customer care that understands them. They don’t want to discuss irrelevant topics.

Think about the best bartenders. They know how to suggest the right drinks, they remember what patrons like and they provide personal service. When you get right down to it, CSPs could learn a lot from Cheers.