Adaptive customer engagement with mobile Apps: Think contextual, act personal
By : Sandeep Mittal
Senior Vice President
Digital transformation imperatives for telcos amidst intensified customer expectations coupled with shrinking revenue streams are accelerating the move from traditional agent-assisted channels to less-expensive, more intuitive machine-assisted channels.
Adaptive, personalised, and contextual customer engagement approach is must for telcos to fend-off digital-native competitors and drive long-term profitable relationships and customer loyalty. These adaptive customer engagements must be seamless and fluid from customers’ perspective yet intentional and valuable from business perspective. Simply put: App-based customer engagement is slated to become the next battlefield to decide winners or losers in the digital economy.
R.I.P. Customisation, Long Live Personalisation
“If a user doesn’t return to your App after one week, there is a 60% chance they never will. On the flip side, loyal customers make 25% more in-App purchases than occasional users.” – Localytics
When it comes to attracting customer’s attention on proprietary Mobile Apps, Telcos are up against numerous other Apps which have been at the helm of delivering extreme personalisation and superior experience.
Today, most technology companies are focused on giving users the flexibility to opt for content and App themes tailored to their interests and needs. That’s customisation and not enough for consumers who are living in the luxury of everything going digital. It takes a while and requires some effort on customers’ part to get it right on a customised app. The law of diminishing returns kicks in – causing confusion and dissonance in customers who are required to ask for what they need in order to get relevant experience. Personalisation on the other hand is when an App adapts itself based on the historic knowledge about the customers, without them having to put much effort at all- it just happens in few clicks.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” – Henry Ford
In this digital world where so much data gets captured across customer journeys (discovery, purchase, usage, upgrade) and user interactions (swipes, taps, pinches), consumers don’t just expect digital enterprises to deliver on what they want. In fact the need of the hour is to go beyond and deliver a personalised experience proactively.
Personalisation: The proverbial fulcrum of customer engagement
Today telcos understands that in order to convert app downloads to loyal users, they must invest in building and nurturing a deeper relationship with prospective and existing users. This mobile-centric approach has taken many forms, at the heart of which is the idea of personalisation. It is when consumers feel that their experience has been refined for their benefit, they feel like engaging more.
Content personalisation: Spearhead the data-driven experiences
Consumers expect nothing less than the most relevant content on every touch point, more so on mobile app. This can only be achieved by a powerful big data analytics engine equipped with purpose-built analytics models that mines data from various internal and external sources. The content that is shown to customers can be based on their historical preferences, contextual needs as well as their social circle behavior. This will ensure that the most useful content is made available to consumers without him going through a time consuming discovery process. By delivering on these personalised, data-driven experiences, customers tend to repay the enterprises not just in revenue, but also in advocacy.
App personalisation: Make the first impression a lasting one
Ease of use is critical for the adoption of self-service mobile Apps by subscribers. A device-optimised interface is a must to ensure that customers have hassle-free access to self-service regardless of their access device. App personalisation needs to be embedded as a part of App design in such a way that the App is able to automatically adapt the self-service features to different devices depending on their capabilities and the desired level of richness and interactivity.
Another recent and under-utilised development in the App world is the advent in both iOS and Android of ‘deep linking’. Rather than taking a user to the App home screen – or even worse, to the App store to download it – they can be taken directly to a specific location within an App thus delivering contextual experience.
Telcos need to have a big data analytic platform in the back-end with automation and machine-learning capabilities to ensure personalised holistic experience on mobile app.
Omni-channel Personalisation: Connect the cross-channel dots
In the digital era, the trend of the “Internet of me” is likely to extend to the “omnichannel experience of me” as customers will expect relevant, personalised and interactive engagements whenever and wherever they want them.
Self-care has already evolved into self service, which includes customers researching and buying new products and services themselves. And while they are doing so they tend to ‘channel hop’ during the discovery, decision-making and buying processes. In order to maintain engagement, Apps need to provide more functionality and better personalisation based on behavioural signals from other channels, such as Web, in-store and in-App data.
Analytics-driven systems with automation and machine-learning capabilities offer telcos the ability to track and respond to subscribers in an Omni-channel environment, while empowering them to take personalised next-best-action.
Self-care Apps have come a long way, but the holy-grail is further ahead
In a digital landscape where no single customer’s journey is identical, it is essential to develop, orchestrate and optimise an ever-agile, flexible and nimble customer engagement strategy. A self-care App is a powerful mode to deliver personalised mobile experience. A highly relevant experience together with serving the content and functionality needs of the consumer has the potential to satisfy the underlying emotional needs to trigger continuous engagement, brand loyalty and profitable relationship.