Software to track cell user churn

Indranil Chakraborty

Kolkata, Nov 4: Sample this: A cellular telephony operator has 100,000 users and is growing, but every month, around 6,000 leave for its rivals or leave its rivals to join back—and may be desert it again. How does the company predict future movement? Open that Excel file....

Or, look for a churn management software. Very rare in the Indian market, where operators are prone to boast of subscriber numbers, but don’t bother much about retaining customers.

Enter SAS India, the business intelligence solutions company and fully-owned subsidiary of SAS Inc, which has developed a churn management solution for Indian operators.

According to Mr Gourish Hosangady, CEO and managing director of SAS, the entry of new telephony operators has created a big market for churn solutions.

“Around six to seven per cent of cellular customers switch operators, making it difficult for operators to manage their operations,” Mr Hosangady said.

SAS will price its offerings between Rs 30 to 60 lakh depending on the complexity.

A good churn solution analyses customer behaviour based on his or her usage pattern. Using predictive modelling, it analyses the churn faced and predicts customer behaviour with a satisfactory level of accuracy.

The vice-president for operations at Usha Communications Technology (UCT), Mr Amitava Datta, said very few operators had “churn” software.

“A proper churn solution is expensive and needs a mature market situation for the satisfactory level of performance. In India, most operators are using tools like Excel to analyse customer behaviour,” Mr Datta said. UCT is dedicated to the development of telecom software.