Latest Challenge For Telecom Companies: Retaining Their Customers

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The fact that the Indian telecom industry is robust and growing is no secret. More than 20 million basic and cellular subscribers were added in the year 2003 alone - helping the industry meet its 7 per cent teledensity target, a whole year in advance. This isn’t a chance occurence. Over the last few years the Indian telecom industry has seen a customer acquisition war like no other — dramatically falling prices, attractive schemes, and emotional ad campaigns — vendors have gone all out to get the largest share of the pie, and very successfully so. Recent cuts in tariffs all reiterate the fact that the liberalisation of the telecom industry is having the effect that introducing competition usually does - making the customer win.

However, as experts would put it - the best is yet to come. Service providers — having proved their mettle in the war of customer acquisition will now go on to round two — customer retention.

All of us have had experiences with our service providers that have been less than satisfying. How many times have you received a call from a customer relationship agent enquiring about your phone bill payment — a day after you’ve informed another of your intention to drop a cheque off the next day? Or, how about finding that your roaming facility is inactive because there’s some confusion at the back end about your credit limit? These are all common issues faced by customers — issues that have and could cost a service provider a customer.

As the market matures and the customer truly becomes king, a service provider will be under pressure to innovate and make customers stay. Effective, personalised customer relationship management will become the mantra for Telecom Service Providers (TSPs). Simply stated, Customer Relationship Mana-gement (CRM) is about finding, getting, and retaining customers. CRM is at the core of a customer-focused business strategy and includes the people, processes, and technology questions associated with marketing, sales and service.

In today’s hyper-competitive world, organisations looking to implement successful CRM strategies need to have access to a common view of the customer using integrated information systems and contact centre implementations. The customer should also be able to communicate via any communication channel he chooses to use. CRM tools will enable TSPs to understand customers against a set of parameters.