Digitization: The Key To Augment Customer Experience

Telcos are looking to thrive in this digital world where voice and text are rapidly losing their appeal and AI is taking over. Two primary areas that require focus from Telcos now more than ever is:

• Staying relevant, and
• Retaining customers 

Staying relevant and retaining customers is achieved through excellent customer experience, and this is where Telcos have the most opportunity to create an impact. Accurate and reliable data analysis systems have to be in place to drive the nucleus. 

For example, data shows that around 36 million South Africans access the internet via mobile phones. Therefore, Telcos must work to digitize and enhance the customer journey through mobile-specific offerings. 

In this article, we will examine how Telcos can stay relevant and work to improve their customer’s experience with digitization and digitalization.

What’s the Difference Between Digitization and Digitalization?

Simply put, the meaning of digitization is the process of converting data and systems from their analogue form to digital ones. Digitalization, on the other hand, is rooted in transformation. Digitization is often seen as the first step toward digital transformation, also known as Digitalization. The impact of digitization on business is one that lays the foundations for further innovation. And without digitization processes, companies across industries encounter little to no growth or progress.

How Digitization Plays a Role in Telecommunications

Driven by new technologies, digitization has worked to reshape customer expectations and how users live, as well as work in conjunction with the digital world.

The evolution of Telecommunications all the way from the 1860’s to the 2000’s has always been driven by a technological model, up until this point. Today, Telecommunication needs to be taken one step further and become a customer experience focused model. 

The new model requires a shifting away from simple, outdated communication services delivery to powering customers’ digital lifestyles. As users interact with Telecommunication operators through email, voice, website, social media, or other channels, Telcos will need to leverage analytics to improve their offerings based on customer behaviour in order to maintain relevance.

How Digitization and Telecommunications Connect

Telecommunication operators drive digitization into people’s lives and work, but for the most part, stall in using it to drive enhancements into their own core services or operational processes.

86% of people are willing to pay more for an enhanced customer experience in today’s world, the focus of all organisations, including Telcos, should be customer engagement on omni-channel, self-service and segment targeted marketing.

Telcos have all the data they need to make radical service improvements; they simply lack the systems they need to extract, analyse and act on the appropriate findings. , By developing strategies or new offerings around the following, they may encounter existing opportunities

• Products, services and current processes that either make the daily life of the digital consumer easier or more pleasurable.
• Upgrading customer touchpoint processes to make it easier for the user, and beyond that, to delight.
• Out of the box innovation to enhance customer experience across all channels.

The Future of Digitization and Telecommunications

Studies have shown that  South African Telecommunication companies are only just getting started with digitization, especially in comparison to the progress of more developed industries.

This stance is at odds because unlike the progressive industries, telcos boast the very data which is not only essential for digitization, but also ripe for monetisation. When data analysis is tethered to trends or customer experience, digitization is born. Trending areas for Telecoms digitization that impact customer experience include:

• Innovation around additional business functions like edge computing and real-time business analytics
• Growth in fibre, IoT, cloud, networks, automation
• Self-managed network functionality
• Key network capabilities (speed, latency, security and so on)
• Digital services that support new devices
• 4G and the pathway towards 5G

With limited resources around customer experience (CX), Telcos have found it difficult to progress toward digitization. The people who work for this technology-focussed industry generally keep their focus on technology which is their core speciality. However, to enhance the customer experience, they may need to hire an experienced outsider to drive changes. 

Conclusion

Digitization and digital transformation are the two most significant processes that Telcos have at their disposal – these are the keys to customer experience augment and ultimate customer retention. If Telcos are wanting to move forward successfully, they absolutely have to shift their focus toward digital transformation. Because without embracing the digital world, companies from across industries will certainly fail.