Marketing is a challenge,
and it’s getting more challenging

With the above context in mind, how can telcos cut through the noise to reach an ever-demanding customer who is deluged by marketing messages, often from the various divisions of the same telco? It’s a serious challenge and it requires a clever solution that is both dynamic and personalized, one that helps address customer perception of value and also creates ‘unique marketing real estate.’ In my experience, the Holy Grail that telcos should be aiming for is the creation of a ‘Value Statement.’

This is the crux of the matter: research has shown that, despite the increase in the volume of marketing and promotional information (via web marketing, direct email, SMS and in-app marketing) in recent years, customers haven't changed their perception of the value that the telco is providing them. An example of this comes from a European Tier 1 that, to address its low NPS, decided to provide all kinds of offers including data caps, movie downloads, and more to its customers. When recipients of these offers were subsequently asked in focus groups about the price they were being charged, they thought they were being offered terrible VALUE for money simply because they didn't remember all the services made available to them.

This is one reason why Value Statements are the way forward. They provide a way of aggregating and clearly articulating all the value that a telco provides to an individual, including (a) what offers are available (the value a customer can access); (b) what offers the customer has used (the value the customer has actually utilized); and (c) other targeted informational and marketing offers (the additional value that can still be accrued).

With a Value Statement in hand, the customer has a clear sense of the overall value he or she receives from the service provider. Customers are aware that, for instance, “I pay $10/month but in return I get X amount of data, $4 of vouchers and unlimited texts. vs. paying $8 simply for the same amount of data but no downloads (and/or limited texts) from a competitor.”

Looking at this, it’s both easy to see why the creation of these statements should be table stakes for telco marketers but also why creating them is challenging. The various tiles that make up a Value Statement must reflect all the offers relevant and available for the customer in question at any specific point in time ... so it needs to be both personalized and dynamic for each individual.

The fact that CSP marketers must make every interaction matter today—and also give customers and prospects a good reason to provide their consent to receiving marketing messages—underlines how vital it is to guarantee that any customers’ fears and frustrations related to the thought of being bombarded by multiple individual offers and messages are ameliorated. Marketing communications have to be driven by content that is meaningful, interesting and useful to recipients.

The Value Statement is designed to achieve all of these things. It provides a unique way of communicating with the customer and increasing value perception. It is a tool that cuts through all the other marketing noise and gives the telco 'real estate' to communicate unique benefits as well as relevant and personalized upsell offers in a clear and consolidated manner.

Imagining the Customer Value Statement

In terms of implementation, the Customer Value Statement (CVS) is best described as a digital engagement initiative that enables the CSPs to put key marketing messages in front of priority customers to animate their behavior and encourage their relationship with the business.

The customer experience that the Value Statement delivers can be thought of as a digital visualization of several value reinforcement messages that can be combined with relevant offers. In a mobile (or web) setting, these can best be displayed as tiles on a handset (or a web) screen. Each tile will have a unique call-to-action (CTA) button that enables the recipient to find out more about a relevant offer or to initiate a process to accept it. This, along with the selection of the best offer for each tile presented to the individual, must be configured in real-time.