Danny Dicks explains why designing products and packages to meet the new expectations of customers is only half the battle – communicating effectively with them is just as important.
During the COVID-19 lockdown working from home was essential for business continuity but this is one part of the pandemic that many workers have actually enjoyed, and they’re in no hurry to give up their kitchen tables and rush back to their desks.
What has emerged is a new Work from Anywhere paradigm, where employees work from home, cafes, restaurants, pubs and other co-spaces rather than working in a centralised office. Businesses are embracing the trend and commentators are speculating that the future of many businesses will be distributed, with small, local meet-up ‘hubs’ rather than large centralised offices.
This change is having significant effects on communications service providers (CSPs) and the services they deliver to customers. Decentralised working means that more is now required from ‘home’ broadband services and new home-work-life packages are required to support what Omnisperience calls Smart Lifespaces (see B2C – why there’s no such thing (and what you need to do about it))
Omnisperience research has found that the pandemic has accelerated digital investment in 75% of CSPs, with service providers challenged to develop new products, bundles and pricing strategies to meet emerging customer needs. Vital though this is, it isn’t enough. Improving the effectiveness of how CSPs communicate with customers is just as important and one of the most basic elements of successful digital business. The core of effective communication is helping customers understand their spending as they change or add to their services in response to the new way they are now living and working. Making this easier and clearer is the next challenge CSPs face.
The bill is a vital channel for customer engagement
For business customers, bill communications are set to become a vital control point as they seek a better understanding of their ICT spend in the New Normal of distributed and dynamic workforces. For consumers, bill communications is becoming the key engagement point as CSPs shift from a customer acquisition mindset to one of retention and upsell.
As simple as it might sound, using the bill as an effective communications tool is a big challenge for many CSPs. Omnisperience’s research found that three-quarters admit their customers are still calling contact centres because they don’t understand their charges. This is frequently the case with the first bill after a change. Which is why, with more change on the horizon that ever before, it’s never been more important to ensure clear customer communication of charges.
But bills can do so much more than inform customers of their spending. They can boost engagement, improve marketing effectiveness and simultaneously repay investment through lower operational costs, fewer calls to contact centres and increased average revenue per user (ARPU).
In the post-COVID world the old way of segmenting customers – with a hard divide between business and consumer services – doesn’t work (see Are segmentation mistakes costing your business millions?). Not only are more people working from home, but many are now running so-called nanobusinesses. (see Understanding the nanobusiness opportunity) These encompass small-scale home-based ventures such as monetised hobbies, microretailing, and paid work in the Influencer Economy and Gig Economy. In the future, households will be more like mini businesses, requiring:
- improved, digital bills that clearly quantify and explain the value their CSP is delivering
- consolidation with the ability to interrogate and navigate the data provided
- reassurance that they have the right package – cementing the relationship and guiding customers to products and packages that deliver even greater value.
For larger business customers, more in-depth engagement is possible through the bill. An effective bill enables the customer’s financial team to interrogate and analyse usage data to control and understand spending, ensuring it’s aligned with business goals. Customisation is a powerful means of engagement, making cost assignment easier, analysis more effective and suggested changes readily adoptable.