Mobile self-care platforms growing in importance

77% of the world’s population is mobile. More than three out of four people are already signed up with a mobile provider. This leaves little space for mobile operators to grow by acquiring new customers and the market is driven by price competition: The cheaper the better.

Without obvious customer satisfaction issues with low price suppliers, it’s very difficult for mobile operators to offer competing products or services at higher prices. Generally, competing on price alone leads to disloyal customers, low margins and many sleepless nights for business managers.

This being said, the Mobile Marketing Association believes that operators in developed countries could run out of profit in the next two to four years if they do not change their business models.

So, now what?

Operators in mature markets are trying to find ways of reducing costs reduce churn and open new revenue channels.

Operators in emerging markets want to improve customer care, up-sell new services and keep customers engaged.

Innovative operators are taking it one step further. For example, today O2 has more than 25% of their active customers engaging every month through My O2, their self care platform.

My O2 is a platform for O2 subscribers where they can login to check their bill, update personal details, explore special offers, browse other products/service and interact with a virtual agent. Along with enhancing an operator’s service offering, there are clear business opportunities encouraging operators to offer this type of customer care tool:

Create transparency for users on there voice and data plans
Reduce customer care costs
Increase adaptation of new services
Improve customer satisfaction by providing help anytime, anywhere
Increase revenues by enabling customers to easily reconfigure plans or purchases additional services
How do we see it?

Mere churn prevention is probably the worst option as it is passive. Operators are at a critical point and need to be proactive if they don’t want to disappear. It should be about delivering services that are satisfying, desirable and engaging. An offensive value-added services strategy that delivers a compelling customer experience, one that enables operators to boost individual loyalty and the lifetime value of their existing customer base.

Built on years of experience with 20+ operators across the globe, Golden Gekko’s ‘Self Care’ app is designed around this premise. An opt-in app that not only reduces customer care costs, increase adaptation and cross-promotes services, but also collects valuable business intelligence that helps operators deliver better products, services and support to their existing client base.

Operators can’t rely on monthly voice or data plans – the end game is customer loyalty because customer loyalty means engaged clients, added spending, more renewals, customer referrals and lower acquisition costs.