Category: Technology

The present era of connection that we live in demands businesses not just meet customer needs but anticipate them and then, exceed them. A volatile market, fluctuating consumer demands, and rising competition, however, make the playing field more complex. With the consumer firmly in the driver’s seat, delivering elevated customer experiences emerges as the key differentiator that separates successful organizations from the not-so-successful ones.

Pivoting to a digital-first mindset is now imperative to succeed in a world where competition is getting increasingly advanced and data, more detailed. While telecom organizations are leveraging data from the smartphone that has become ubiquitous in our lives, it is also time to leverage the world of wearables and connected devices to capture data that can drive demand and influence customer decision-making.

Research estimates that the wearable technology market will be worth $45 Billion with over 250 million annual unit shipments by the end of 2021. It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 22% between 2018 and 2021. In keeping with this trend, mobile connectivity and associated advanced capabilities – such as VoLTE (Voice over LTE) are also being integrated into the wearable and smart devices ecosystem. Research suggests that these devices will help “mobile operators drive more than $12 Billion in service revenue by the end of 2021, following a CAGR of approximately 36% between 2018 and 2021.”

For telecom providers, this also signals a more nuanced way to look at the commoditization of telecom services especially as the world becomes more software-defined. Wearable technology integration into the lives of the consumer is a sign of their willingness to engage with wearable tech. It demands expanded wireless capacity and the decreasing cost of data. However, it means access to more personal and contextual data that can help them deliver more personalized experiences to drive elevated customer experiences.

To succeed in today’s marketplace, combining wearable data with consumer data can give telecom providers the insights they need to deliver personalization to influence customer satisfaction and ensure customer retention.

Smartwatch data, in-ear virtual assistants, wearable technology: smartwatches, smart glasses, headsets, smart headphones, and other internet-enabled devices all generate a huge volume of data, all of which is personal and contextual to the consumer. Using this data telecom providers can:

Identify sales and upselling opportunities

Customer data generated from wearable devices present insights into their habits, choices, and preferences. Telecom providers can leverage this data and analyze patterns and trends and identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities. This data can also be used by customer service executives to engage with the customer more meaningfully and present them with services and offers that are contextual to their needs and requirements and converse with more certainty.

Improve customer support

By leveraging data generated from wearables and smart devices, telecom companies can also personalize the customer support experience. Following a robotic script and taking the customer through a series of questions only erodes goodwill and further aggrieves an irate customer. Following this script also makes it harder for the customer service representative to connect with the customer in a more meaningful manner.

Using data generated from this device network allows the customer service team to identify the points of conflict and challenges with greater certainty. This gives them the capability to better personalize support services and address customer issues more proactively.

Empowering the customer care executive with data can also assuage an irate customer by offering more relevant discounts or offers to compensate for issues faced by the customer. This personalization not only ensures better customer management but also ensures better customer satisfaction.

Customer support teams can also proactively track customer issues and proactively solve them before the customer reaches out for support. Providing a detailed understanding of the issue further builds credibility and drives customer loyalty.

Personalize marketing

Personalizing marketing experiences is of critical importance today to drive customer adoption and advocacy. It plays a great role in ensuring customer stickiness. Wearable and smart devices often allow users to buy products online. Telecom providers can use this data to create marketing plans and offers that are more contextual and relevant to the consumer. A free Netflix subscription, for example, might not be a great bait for someone who perhaps likes to shop more than a stream.

Data from wearables such as Google Glass can be used to track what advertisements the consumer views and takes interest in. With access to real-time data, telecom providers can send localized, context-based content and augment customer experiences with greater personalization.

Using data from these devices empowers telecom companies to engage with the consumer in a more meaningful, and intelligent manner. Data generated from these devices can give telecom companies deep insight into consumer patterns and behaviors that they can use to consistently improve the customer experience at each point and identify avenues to drive usage.

Hands-free tech has evolved considerably from its initial days of allowing people to listen to music or attend calls on wireless earphones and headphones. While this still is a major functionality and significant part of the hands-free culture prevalent today, there are numerous other innovative consumer experiences that have become mainstream thanks to the growth of hands-free technology. Hands-free experiences in cars and larger vehicles are a major sign of how the future of mobility is likely to be influenced by hands-free tech.

Today, nearly all car manufacturers offer a standard Bluetooth-based hands-free telecommunication facility in their vehicles that allow drivers to make and respond to telephone calls without having to take their hands off from the wheel. But this is no longer the most exciting element about hands-free tech. There is a new class of smart devices that are making hand-free communication radically cooler than ever. We are talking about wearable tech – smart digital devices that can be worn and carried around by people. From wristwear to footwear, the global wearable technology market size is expected to be worth over USD 265.4 billion by 2026 according to studies.

While there are tons of possibilities that make wearables, the new future of hand-free communication, it is obvious to ask the question about the value businesses can leverage from investing in services that work with wearable and similar modern technology especially in the highly competitive telecom landscape.

Let us examine the most promising of possibilities that wearables empower in hands-free communication.

Innovative Customer Experience

Enabling consumers to do a range of activities via wearables is the new paradigm of customer experience that several leading brands are now exploring. For telecom companies, this could mean enabling customers to pay their bills by simply talking to a voice assistant like Siri or Google Now or Alexa on their smart wearables like a smartwatch. To offer a seamless experience driven by such innovations, telecommunication companies need to have an integrated customer feedback recognition and service delivery framework that uses advanced conversational technologies powered by AI and machine learning. This will enable them to respond accurately to hands-free activities like wearable-based bill payment instructions.

Leverage Advanced Data Insights

To provide support to customers, it is important for telecommunication companies to have a clear idea of the usage pattern or behaviour of their customers on their network for the duration over which problems occurred. With wearable tech combined with advanced analytics, telecom businesses can identify root causes of issues such as connectivity loss in geographical zones as they are recorded and reported by wearables like smartwatches. This data can be used to build a more resilient network infrastructure and respond faster to customer concerns. Ultimately this helps in improving customer satisfaction which leads to better business outcomes.

Intuitive Notifications

Telecom companies leverage traditional notification options like SMS and Call reminders to inform or alert consumers about any activity related to their account. It could even be a security alert or indicator of spam. However, for all these scenarios, customers get notifications on their smartphones which they might not always pick up and observe instantly. This delay from the consumer side can be prevented by leveraging advanced notification and alert systems that communicate with wearables linked to the customer’s smartphone, like their smartwatch or band. Notifications or alerts displayed on wearables have a higher probability of being noticed by consumers and hence risky scenarios can be avoided.

Personalized Cross-Selling

As market conditions tighten, telecom companies want to find alternate sources of ancillary revenue. Wearables open a new possibility of collaboration for telecom companies wherein they can partner with leading brands to offer personalized services to consumers based on data collected and share by wearables. For example, telecom companies can partner with fitness companies to offer customized subscriptions to fitness programs based on the data collected from the customer via a wearable device. Telecom companies can charge a commission for the cross-selling service on their behalf and bill consumers directly in a single bill.

Wearables are amongst the latest entrants in the telecommunication industry that began to embrace technology as a key driver of value rather than the traditional approach of considering technology as an enabler. Consumers expect a great deal of freedom of choice and device independence while availing services from telecom companies. With wearables coming into the picture, the hands-free paradigm can be propelled into new dimensions.

To keep up with the pace of growing technologies, telecom companies need to have a resilient and responsive digital ecosystem within their business and invest in modern technology solutions that help them drive a unified customer and communication experience. This is where our range of digital services and solutions can be a game-changer. Get in touch with us to explore a range of modern digital platforms and unified communication solutions that can aid your business to scale new frontiers in digital innovation and embrace technologies like wearables at ease.

The telecom industry is undergoing seismic shifts. Investments in consecutive generations of technology are no more a guarantee of a return on capital expenditure. Simultaneously, digital start-ups are overturning traditional products and services of communications service providers (CSPs). Given this state of disruption, telcos need to look at all means to increase revenue and safeguard sustainability.

The opportunities from the web

One interesting area of opportunity is opened up by the internet. This is ironic since data is being seen as the voice-killer in many ways. But clearly, the reality is a bit more complex.

MNOs became a part of the Internet environment with the arrival of mobile broadband services. Interconnectedness arrived between few elements of MNO networks, like Short Message Service Centres (SMSCs), encompassed IF interfaces and unlocked e-mail-to-text and text-to-email messaging. This evolution opened up some opportunities and some risks too.

SMS messaging is susceptible to identity spoofing, faking, spam, and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. These openings WILL compromise customer experience and satisfaction. Revenues are also under attack from grey routes, which carry the traffic that cannot be billed because they are not subject to contractual agreements.

As per a report byTyntec, 66% percent of messaging traffic is on gray routes

The focus is growing onprotecting the space, even as the openings for revenue gain are emerging.

Messaging has evolved from simple messaging, like notifications and alerts, to real-time user authentication, ticketing, and mobile payment enablement. These new messaging set-ups are deeply tied to a consumer’s identity on the MNO’s network and demand strict adherence to high service quality levels. (For instance, message sources and destinations must be validated, message delivery must be well-timed and dependable) In fact, consumer requirements have rapidly evolved to now wanting real-time two-factor authentication across a variety of apps and app-driven services.

It’s clear that MNO services are likely to be leveraged more and more to validate a user’s identity on the app ecosystem. That suggests the MNO’s role is more than merely that of an access provider.

Other technologies that depend on MNOs are also becoming more mainstream.

Opportunities from IoT

Consider the Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure, which heavily depends on the coverage and access of the MNO. IoT networks employ MNO infrastructure for main or backup access. IoT devices communicate with platforms, data analytics engines, and central controllers all the time. They send data out and get instructions back. Security protocols would run on the network. Control messages to the devices would also utilize the MNO network.

By some estimates, there will be 35 billion IoT devices installed worldwide by the end of 2020. This massive growth of IoT presents yet another opportunity for revenue generation to MNOs.

The SMS Firewall: Allowing apt monetizing of Application-to-Person (A2P) Messaging

In previous blogs, we have spoken of how enterprise messaging is a real opportunity for MNOs to maintain and increase their messaging revenue. But this is a risk too. Intermediary entities are attracted to the opening to manipulate mobile operators’ security and revenue assurance gaps to evade costs and send unwanted messages.

Mobile carriers did take some steps to safeguard their networks by employing antispam filters and easy blocking mechanisms but they need to do more to enable end-to-end protection. Solutions based on content authentication and reporting also exist. But a comprehensive SMS firewall solution ensures visibility, efficacy, and proactive action.

More traditional areas

Obviously, there is a need to protect the traditional sources of revenue too – voice and SMS. Leaving aside more complex problems like how to drive up usage, there is sufficient room for maximizing the revenue potential of the current subscriber base by reducing fraud.

A good anti-fraud voice solution will allow the MNO to detect inbound and outbound voice call frauds and take the required preventive measures to block such activity. Over time, this will help drive up consumer confidence and trust -all good for sustained relationships and enhanced usage.

As mentioned while talking about A2P SMS fraud, a good SMS solution will be able to actively monitor and blog MO and MT SMSs to prevent fraud and spam SMS activity. This ensures the consumers get only the messages they value and increases their trust in the system.

A drag on prepaid revenue-generating activity is zero-balance subscribers. They sit on the books, but until they recharge, they are unable to deliver any revenues. Rather than treat them as lost causes, MNOs can deploy innovative solutions that help generate some transactions. For instance, a service could generate a missed call on behalf of the zero-balance subscriber and induce a call back with revenue potential.

The enterprise as a revenue source

Enterprises have long been great sources of revenue for MNOs with their use of solutions like International Toll-Free numbers and Premium Numbers. Those services are well-known but there’s innovation-driven evolution possible in the service needs of enterprises too.

Enterprise functions like customer service, marketing, and sales are potential consumers of solutions like bulk and auto-diallers, virtual roaming numbers, and collaboration and conferencing solutions. MNOs have the infrastructure capacity and the skill and experience of managing complex IT backbones and infrastructure. It’s a small step from there to monetizing that capacity by offering data center, cloud computing, and infrastructure support to enterprises in an on-demand model.

That apart, more collaborative and inventive business models are emerging as MNOs come to understand that the greatest asset they possess may be the data they have about millions of consumers and their habits. They are looking to monetize that data to good effect. For instance, telecom operators are building innovative partnerships with consumer product companies and financial services companies to drive up sales and revenues. This is an exciting space with great promise.

Telecom companies are a part of the essential fabric of economic activity in the modern economy. Even as specific revenue opportunities and threats emerge, it’s fair to expect telcos to carry on.

The battle for customer acquisition and retention has become cutthroat in the telecom industry. With more consumers’ choices than ever, tremendously low switching costs, and universal access to new services, the telecom industry is undergoing rapid change and growing competition.

As the revenues from traditional voice and messaging avenues continue to shrink, and over-the-top media services like Skype, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, and others eat away at the principal offerings, telecom operators must prioritize their investments in customer engagement and experience strategies.

This is imperative to drive customer stickiness and advocacy.

Data from an Ericsson survey reveals:

• An average smartphone customer requires 4.1 days, and 2.2 attempts to complete an interaction with a telco.
• A one-day delay in achieving an action turns into a 30% decrease in customer satisfaction
• Only a third of customers think that their telecom operator understands their needs as a customer
• 46% of customers believe that their provider is hiding behind ‘bad’ technology, such as canned responses, impersonal contact forms, and do-not-reply emails.

As telecom operators continue to battle for customer loyalty, a key strategy to help them differentiate is offering subscribers consistent experiences across different touchpoints and interaction channels.

While operators need to have the right people and processes to help shape customers’ experiences, it’s also necessary to have the right technologies in place. Together, the people, processes, and tools will deliver a foundation for providing consistent experiences to customers across various channels cost-effectively.

It also needs to be said that while focusing on measures that reduce customer effort seems the right thing to do, this alone will not take telecom operators to the next level of customer experience. There are two reasons:

1. They get caught up in fixing existing business models to solve the issues of today’s customers. This restricts them from structurally reinventing themselves to meet the future expectations of customers.
2. They are tackling only one driver (that is, customer effort) of customer experience

Why is Customer Engagement Crucial to Telecom Operators?

Customer engagement is the procedure of improving customer interactions with a business at different touchpoints – research, pre-sales, onboarding, usage, support, and so forth.

Unfortunately, numerous telecom operators heavily invest in enhancing all the customer management life cycle stages only until the purchase point. Once the contract is signed and the service is purchased, fewer businesses actively focus on customer engagement or invest in augmenting it.

This results in:

• Poor customer satisfaction ratings, damaging brand equity
• The dwindling impact of referral marketing programs
• Higher customer support costs due to rising volumes of complaints
• Underperforming cross-sells/up-sells
• High customer churn
• Low customer lifetime value (CLV)

All of the above, in due course, turns to lost revenues.

The lack of suitable customer engagement solutions makes established operators more susceptible to revolutionary competitors like OTT players and digital-first market entrants who are better armed to engage with customers across numerous touchpoints/channels.

Consequently, the legacy operators’ ability to bring their old tactics of customer engagement to a new digital maturity level becomes crucial.

8 Ways Telecom Operators Ensure Customer Experience

Introducing Ease and Usability at Each Step

What more can be done to reduce consumer effort? Operators looking to offer ease and usability have dramatically diminished the number of tariffs and options and eliminated one-off fees. They have also addressed shorter-term options, keeping in mind that unhappy customers locked into long contracts can become social media critics.

But few operators have reduced their small print, rewriting them in plain language. Fewer have achieved a simple, combined fixed-mobile bill displaying a single total (monthly charges, plus VAT, minus discounts).

Several customers don’t understand billing, random credits, loyalty schemes, and unclear terms. This eventually results in more calls to customer service centers and long queues in retail outlets – which do not add value.

While most of these efforts help to achieve a better experience, there are some delight opportunities. For instance, customers can still be surprised by a zero-configuration experience.

Proactively Resolving Customers’ Hassles

Being proactive helps both sides. For instance, informing customers about planned maintenance means reduced effort for business (lesser calls to helplines) and less disappointment for customers (less time spent in call queues or troubleshooting the problem themselves).

Extending that philosophy could mean providing automatic migration to the latest tariffs, eradicating customer hassle (switching) while also lessening operator effort (maintaining legacy portfolios).

Enhancing Accessibility via Seamless Interactions Across Preferred Channels

Accessibility is an opportunity to provide advanced and personalized customer experiences based on seamless omnichannel customer interaction and engagement. Operators who want to delight today’s customers need to start by making swapping between channels hassle-free. The whole interaction history must be available at every touchpoint. For instance, an in-store sales rep can see what a call center agent has promised. Interaction continuity is mandatory. For instance, enabling a customer to talk to the same agent after a dropped call to a hotline. An enhanced omnichannel experience means seamless swapping and smart channel integration. For instance, leveraging interactive voice response (IVR) in a mobile app when customers are incapable of resolving issues and proactive follow-up when promised response times are exceeded. The information must flow seamlessly, between the physical and digital world, for instance, by enabling customers to scan a QR code on a device or printed communication.

Emphasizing on Quality and Performance Over Technical Specifications

Prominent operators are already emphasizing on customer service performance and quality. They meticulously monitor and address the possible deterioration in customer experience (such as dropped calls and low video or audio quality) by leveraging Quality of Experience (QoE) features in the network, Operational and Business Support Systems (OSS/BSS), and devices.

However, most operators need to put in extra efforts to express they care about customers’ perceptions. One instance would be a system to inevitably compensate customers for poor experiences before they complain, turning potential dissatisfaction into a delight. Operators could also innovate their business model to sell a customer-specific QoE instead of data volume and bandwidth.

Providing Flexible Services that do not Confine Customers

Customers expect to adjust the services they purchase in a flexible and personalized manner.Enabling customers to align their product or service should come without standard tariffs or increased out-of-bundle costs. By linking unit prices per service for all (not just new) customers, operators could minimize customers’ reconnections, saving on Subscriber Acquisition Cost (SAC). To limit the Average base Revenue Per Unit (ARPU) dilution in this situation, operators require an upsell strategy as a countervailing measure. An example would be to modify all sliders for present customers to keep them on the same ARPU, then let them pick “pay less” >or “get more.”

Fairness and Consistency are Significant Hygiene Factors

Customers who think they have been mistreated are prone to quitting. Taking care of such “hygiene” factors reduces customer churn. Things like making equal offers for existing and new customers, eradicating small print, and sticking by the service promises are a given. Advanced experiences might include cash-back warranties or a one-click “try before you buy” offers.

Transparency Gratifies the Primary Requirement for Safety and Builds Trust

Customer service divisions of prominent telecom operators must provide complete transparency about the present state and expected processing time of service cases. For example, operator mobile apps can display a customer’s inquiry status, significantly curtailing inbound calls. Where an offer or service is highly customized, customers need to see their CLV-based status, expected service level, and features or services they might have to pay for.

Customer appreciation is the fundamental customer experience emotion

Operators need to connect with and learn about their customers. For example, by connecting with their customers on social media, an operator could augment their CRM data and empower agents to relate to a customer’s personal life (where appropriate) more precisely (with knowledge about hobbies and interests, a reference to latest holiday photos, and so forth).

To Conclude

There are two distinct aspects to administering the customer experience—one reactive, the other proactive.

The reactive aspect requires getting the basics right. Negative customer experiences stem most commonly from incomplete network coverage, uncompetitive tariffs, and bad customer support. Essentially, these three variables are the fundamental pillars of the customer experience.

The proactive aspect focuses on how operators position themselves in the broader value chain —multiple networks, numerous devices, and several service providers. Collectively, these three aspects represent a multi-tiered opportunity: not only more users (and SIM cards) but also more uses (spanning multiple devices) and more recurrent usage (of OTT and other services). This proactive aspect of the equation is about embracing complexity.

Operators must embrace the new open, dynamic, and multi-dimensional ecosystem. Making the most of these opportunities demands operators must comprehend customers’ behaviors and preferences and build strategies that reflect them to optimize the customer experience. By embracing complexity, operators can not only reaffirm their significance but also magnify the breadth and depth of their revenue-generating activities.

Imagine making or receiving a call but without using a handset or transforming the handset into a device that can be worn on the wrist?

No, we are not writing this after watching Minority Report or reading some futuristic novel. It’s something that’s already either under development or something that’s been launched in the market.

The coming of the smartphone brought in a new era of mobility which was exploited for consumer benefits as well as enterprise applications and workflows. As phones became “smarter”, more capabilities moved to them. Enterprise applications started offering mobile interfaces and eventually moved to offer crucial capabilities that fully leveraged the capabilities of the mobile device. Think about the role of the mobile in enabling remote customer service and support, for example. But as this world starts becoming increasingly “software-defined” and the capabilities of the mobile start entering wearable and other devices, we are seeing the emergence of an evolved version of the mobility paradigm. Interesting applications are already becoming visible for the “virtual handset”. These applications use all the capabilities of a mobile phone, but without the need to have an actual phone in the hand.

In 2008, Nokia developed Nokia Morph along with the University of Cambridge. They demonstrated how handsets could be made into a stretchable and flexible device that users can use in any shape. Everyone quickly heralded it as the future of telecom.

While Nokia Morph’s progress got stalled due to wider issues with the company’s handset business, it set the precedence for new technologies such as connected devices, Internet of Things (IoT), voice assistants, virtual phone systems, etc. that have gained prominence among companies.

These emerging technologies coupled with 5G and network virtualization look set to change the landscape of telecom. Here are some trends that could lead to an incredible morphing handset revolution.

What’s Behind The Era Of Incredible Morphing Handset?

1. Boundary-less technologies: Traditional handsets were geographically bound. They could not be used beyond a specific range. Communication with people from other countries was cumbersome and expensive. However, the rise of mobile technologies and the internet made it easier for people to keep in touch anywhere, any time. Even companies have become more flexible due to the absence of physical handsets. For example, a few years ago, it was impossible to imagine a remote working customer support service. They had to come to the office and use fixed devices such as traditional handsets and desktops for their jobs. Today, customer support can work from anywhere using mobile phones and virtual calling systems. The entire process is driven by software. Companies are also working towards improving enterprise security by bringing it to military-grade.

2. Cloud technology: Take cloud telephony, for instance. It allows companies to interact with people from over 65+ countries with superior audio quality and zero interruptions. Users can make and receive a call using VoIP technology. It’s easy to set up, saves up to 65% of the total costs as compared to traditional phone systems, and can be accessed from any device such as desktop softphones or wireless VoIP phones.

3. Connected devices: Another recent development is the emergence of connected devices, IoT, and wearable devices. Everything is connected in today’s times. It’s easy for a technical team to identify potential issues in machinery using sensors and take preventive measures to resolve them. It’s also easy to guide workers on critical worksites to complete a task or alert them when close to a danger zone. In fact, many people now prefer to use a wearable device to make payments, set reminders, answer calls, send texts, etc. If the last decade was about using an all-in-one smartphone, the current decade is about using wearable devices to communicate with others without removing the phone from the pocket. With the advent of 5G connections, IoT will become an $8 billion market by 2024, i.e., it will grow over 1400%. IoT is expected to generate over $1.8 billion in revenue for mobile operators. It will also urge the operators to revisit their current offerings and enhance them to keep pace with market changes.

4. Thin and stretchable phones: Companies are now making thin, stretchable phones that could easily fit into the pockets and bridge the gap between laptops and mobile screens. So, the screens can be extended from 6 inches to 7.2 inches without impacting the screen’s resolution.

5. Next-gen networking infrastructure: Whether it’s the rapid 5G penetration, setting up low-power, wide area networks (LPWAN) that are suitable for IoT technology, or offering private 5G networks to large enterprises, next-gen networking infrastructure are becoming a mainstay. Even the hardware of future phones would be 5G-enabled or have integrated SIM.

Conclusion

Years ago, very few of us imagined that a mobile phone would become a one-stop gadget for everything – right from checking emails, making calls, playing games, or shopping online. Companies are constantly innovating to create hands-free, immersive handsets.

As faster, lower latency, bandwidths come in with 5G, the promise of these virtual handsets looks set to become more tangible as users can launch the apps they need more easily. Could this be the new age of mobility, where you are free from the mobile handset also?

As Ivan Guzenko, the CEO and co-founder of SmartyAds, said, “The new phone won’t be a phone that we know anymore. Rather, it will be an augmented reality device that you perceive the world through.”

Currently, 5G and IoT technologies are paving the way for morphed handsets. Years later, it could be another disruptive technology shaping the future communication between people and companies.

Telecom companies need to stay nimble-footed to keep pace with these innovations. They must be ready to replace legacy technologies with modernized ones to grow their revenue and stay relevant in a competitive landscape. To ensure that they are on the right track, companies can work with reliable partners who can guide them to make the right decisions.

We have witnessed the steady rise of OTT services over the past few years. With these OTT “providers” and the growing proliferation of smartphones, the way we engage has also changed. Applications such as WhatsApp, Skype, and the like have now become an organic part of the users’ vocabulary by filling in some niches that existing in the core offerings of CSPs.

Rather uniquely, these applications use the connectivity provided by the MVNOs but are eating into their revenues by providing fixed and mobile voice and messaging services. Given the leaning of the consumer towards OTT, research estimates that OTT services such as Skype and WhatsApp could hurt MVNO revenues by as much as 50% going forward. Mobile operator voice revenue is also expected to drop to $208 billion by 2024 from $381 billion in 2019.

The OTT impact

The proliferation of OTT applications works well for the end consumer but is clearly worrying for telecom providers. There are also countless OTT services that are designed in alternative formats that enable an exit from other classic communication formats such as SMS. While service providers have some income coming in from the data packages, the operators are losing revenue owing to the decreased uptake of their core services.

The OTT app-based performers are creating a great deal of stickiness as they are expanding their reach across multiple areas and attracting users to spend more time communicating, shopping, and consuming content. Given this, they are targeting the entire pie of the smart device and feature phone users.

That apart, the telcos and MVNOs pay a host of additional charges to the government and regulatory bodies. This includes elements such as spectrum usage, licensing fees, and other service taxes. The OTT players deliver the same gamut of services – messaging, video, and voice completely free of cost since they do not fall under the tax or licensing umbrella. As a major security concern, these OTT players are also largely free of government regulatory oversight and monitoring.

The rise of OTT providers and the uptake of their services by consumers also have an impact on network data congestion. The increased use of OTT services increases the data congestion putting an overall strain on the network. While telcos have to invest to enhance their existing infrastructure, they continue to lose revenue as consumers gravitate towards OTT from standard services.

This challenge becomes more complex as OTT players eat into the revenue and use the services of the telcos without being called upon to make any investments in their networks. Increasing connectivity and internet penetration and availability of cheaper devices and content-based ecosystems become catalysts for the growth of OTT.

MVNOs and the OTT threat

OTTs have formed a genuine threat by becoming de-facto MVNOs. In fact, they are jeopardizing their current business model. They are harming the MVNOs business even more as they service their customer’s consumers utilizing the MVNOs networks without any lease agreement or policies to regulate them.

A growing body of research is now pointing out that 43% of western Europe and 33% of the central Asia region consider OTTs a threat. A key factor influencing the steady rise of OTT and the cause of increasing pressure on MVNOS has been an easy regulatory framework that OTTs operate in.

Regulators have so far been technologically neutral towards OTT providers. Given the way OTT is cannibalizing traditional telecom services, it makes sense to bring OTTs under a similar regulatory, compliance, and governance framework as MVNOs.

This becomes all the more essential as OTT providers such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram outgrow major MVNOs such as Vodafone, Deutsche Telecom, and Verizon, and in regards to the number of subscriptions. These MVNOs have 2.11 billion subscribers compared to 2.45 billion for OTT users. While it can be alleged that this is not a fair comparison since these MVNOs have a limited footprint and these OTT providers have a global footprint, it is the MVNOs who spend billions on infrastructure costs and other operational and regulatory costs.

MVNOs until now have been working hard on protecting their revenues from grey routing and spam traffic. They have had to invest greatly to ensure secure and reliable connections and prevent unauthorized connections. They have to work towards ensuring network and data security and ensure compliance and governance to stay on the right side of the regulatory framework. OTT providers, while doing none of these are reaping more benefits than the MVNOs.

The rising proliferation of these OTT providers is a clear indication for the regulatory bodies to reassess their approach towards these providers. Just like how MVNOs operate within certain boundaries to ensure compliance and security, so must OTT providers. Doing so will level the playing field for MVNOs and give them a fair chance to remain competitive in a tough market while protecting the consumer and addressing the genuine security concerns of government bodies.

Is B2C SMS dead?

It’s a question that some companies and marketers are being forced to ask themselves while planning their marketing and communication strategies. They have depended on this powerful channel for years now. Their methods are tested and the approaches are ingrained into their communication strategies. Even the thought of making a drastic shift is daunting.

But the good news is that B2C SMS is still alive and relevant.

Whether it’s sending real-time updates about the delivery status, OTP, or announcing new deals and offers, businesses continue to use SMS to reach out to customers.

There are various reasons why SMS seems to work better than other messaging tools.

• Customers don’t have to download a separate app to receive or send messages. SMS is a default feature in every handset.
• You don’t need an internet connection to receive messages.
• SMS has a 98% open rate, and the messages are read within the first 90 seconds -something that’s unimaginable with other communication tools such as emails and push notifications.

Even customers seem to prefer receiving SMS from companies. 75% of customers are comfortable receiving SMS from companies. However, they want it to be opt-in messages, i.e., they should have opted for receiving messages.

Although it’s clear that SMS is still relevant and is likely to stay in the future, it’s true that companies cannot rely on it alone. Customer preferences are evolving and so is the messaging that companies need to send out. This is why companies need to find other ways to communicate with customers.

Why Is B2C SMS’ Position In Danger?

In India, companies were able to send bulk SMS to customers at just 1 paisa! The conditions are no different across the developing and developed world. No wonder, SMS was so popular with organizations. However, the side effect of this was that customers were bombarded with irrelevant and spam messages. Most regulatory authorities have tried to bring some order to this chaos. For instance, in India, the TRAI has intervened and introduced DLT, a blockchain technology that prevents SMS misuse. TRAI also increased the SMS costs by 25% to 30%.

Similarly, countries like the US, Europe, and Canada have laid down rules to protect customers’ privacy. In the US, companies have to comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and CAN-SPAM Act to ensure that customers are not bothered by spam messages. These laws have also made it mandatory for companies to seek consent from customers before sending them messages.

While these rules are particularly for companies that send bulk spam messages, there are chances that the customer might miss the relevant messages. Recently, Indian customers failed to receive important messages such as OTP when telecom operators were implementing the new TRAI rules.

To avoid such unplanned disruptions and to ensure compliance, as well as to accommodate new types of messages, companies are looking for alternatives to SMS.

Some of these alternatives include:

• Instant messaging apps: Many companies have been using instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, Apple Business Chat, and Telegram to send messages to their customers. There are various benefits of using these apps. First, these apps are widely used by customers for daily communication. So, it’s unlikely that customers will miss the message. In fact, WhatsApp messages get 40% more responses than calls. Second, companies can send rich text messages with images, videos, and links to the customers. Most importantly, these messages are secure as they are end-to-end encrypted, and any unsolicited message can be blocked with just a single tap on the block option.

• Social media messengers: Facebook has over 9 billion monthly active users worldwide, and overall there are 4.48 billion social media users. That’s why most companies find social media to be a lucrative option to communicate with users. Some companies also fully leverage options such as Facebook messengers to have personalized, one-to-one communication with customers. Social media messengers can be more engaging and interactive than SMS by sending useful resources, attachments and answering queries in real-time.

• Web chatbots: Many companies are integrating chatbots with their website to communicate with customers in real-time. They can address customer queries and provide product information to customers. They can also be integrated with social media messengers to generate and convert leads into sales.

So, does that mean that SMS will be permanently replaced with the above alternatives?

Not really!

SMS Is Still The King Of B2C Communication

Although new alternatives are emerging and businesses are looking for new ways to communicate with customers, SMS remains the undisputed king. According to Fortune Business Insights, enterprise SMS is poised to become a $64.24 billion market by 2028. SMS may have limitations such as character limits, restrictions in message richness, and lack of scope for customer engagement. It’s also difficult to stop receiving spam messages. However, SMS continues to revamp and be more compliant with local and international regulations to stay relevant. For example, companies can adopt SMS 2.0, i.e., Rich Communication Services that are similar to instant messengers to send images, videos, links, and rich text to customers. They can be branded, so customers can determine if it’s genuine. Similarly, companies can send messages in a pre-defined template suggested by the regulatory authorities to customers to stay compliant and avoid getting listed as spam. These small changes will help SMS communication to thrive in the future too. There’s no doubt that the king still occupies the messaging throne.

A2P SMS or Application-to-Person SMS services are important tools for most organizations. Whether it is to send out notifications and alerts, appointment reminders, marketing campaigns, or customer relationship management. In short, A2P messaging is among the most effective ways to grab the customer’s attention. Industries such as banking, healthcare, e-commerce, and even entertainment are utilizing this cost-effective way to stay connected with their customers.

The massive reach of SMS messaging can’t be ignored. In fact, research from Gartner shows that SMS has the highest click-through rates, and SMS open rates trump email open rates. Owing to these numbers, the A2P SMS market is on an upward growth trajectory and is estimated to cross $86.5 bn by 2025.

While this number looks great, the Telecom industry faceslosses of $17bn per year< owing to the actions of illegitimate criminal enterprises. So, while mobile operators are looking at unlocking the revenue potential of A2P SMS messaging, the problem of revenue leakage and fraud via unsolicited routes casts a dark shadow on these otherwise sunny skies. In fact, according to a study, “Unsolicited routes are expected to cost the mobile network operators almost US$ 50 billion between 2018-2023”

But how does this revenue leakage happen?

A2P SMS taking the unsolicited route end up exploiting loopholes in the GSM framework and side-stepping the termination charges for the SMS. In such cases, the SMS service could be leveraged at lower than market value by denying mobile and tier-one messaging aggregators vital revenue. Obviously, the quality of the messages is also impacted here since these are routed through unregulated and poorly constructed mobile networks which are often located in inaccessible corners of the globe. As a rule, messages get delivered late or worse, not at all.

Mobile operators have to take strict measures to prevent revenue leakage and block unsolicited route traffic from whittling away their revenue streams. Along with this, consider the impact on the subscriber’s experience and the lack of trust that mobile operators face owing to the influx of unsolicited, fake, and spam messages originating from the unsolicited route.

As the prevention of fraud and revenue leaks assume paramount importance for mobile operators, SMS firewalls become a venerable tool to fight this battle.

SMS Firewall comes to the rescue

To grow customer satisfaction and revenue, mobile operators have to use the right tools and adopt a comprehensive strategy. They have to start with mapping out all the unidentified leakages such as the unsolicited routes, improperly charged routes as well as network abuse. They have to ensure that the tools they use eliminate unsolicited routes by ensuring that A2P traffic is not and cannot be merged with valid person-to-person (P2P) traffic and routes just to avoid bearing A2P charges.

Since the unsolicited routes disregard the rules of engagement between operators, they also impact the trust that has grown on SMS transmission channels. SMS firewalls are an effective strategy to block these unsolicited routes and ensure that enterprise traffic is diverted through the approved channels only.

A full-fledged SMS firewall with international and domestic traffic control also helps mobile operators prevent message flooding by blocking large amounts of messages to one or more destinations. The SMS firewall looks out for traffic surges, unwanted traffic spikes, and improper content and filters these out while simultaneously identifying and proactively blocking the sources and unsolicited routes.

Preventing fake SMS messaging and improving the security of the SMS by identifying manipulated addresses of the messages can also be ensured by using SMS firewalls. This is also the way to greater control as it helps mobile operators control the SMS traffic in their network. Operators can employ special rules for specific roaming partners, sources of incoming traffic, types of traffic, and types of sender ID.

A robust SMS firewall helps mobile operators improve their capacity to prevent network congestion that results from spamming and flooding. It helps in increasing end-user trust by eliminating concerns emerging from activities like SMS faking, SMS spoofing, SMS phishing, SMS viruses are all.

Obviously, mobile operators should have clarity on every single message terminating in their network. Many mobile operator networks (MON) lose revenue because of the A2P bypass, global title bypass, and illegal A2P routes. These can lead to significant losses in revenues. As it happens, this can also open up just the avenue hackers need to flood the network without paying any of the fees. With the SMS firewall, mobile operators achieve transparency on the messages terminating in their network and can also maximize profits by identifying otherwise untapped sources of revenue.

This is the age of SMS firewalls with built-in AI and ML intelligence. These smarter firewalls can stop fraudulent activity, revenue leakage, and build trust in the network. By leveraging a robust and comprehensive SMS firewall, mobile operators, therefore, can gain a transparent understanding of their monthly costs. They can leverage insights to convert Opex to Capex costs while ensuring that A2P SMS traffic is routed only through the approved channels.

Enterprises and industries look at A2P messaging to effectively engage with customers and prospects. This is a critical channel for customer engagement that impacts the customer experience. As such, mobile operators need to pull up their socks and make sure they have the right countermeasures in place to stop illegitimate A2P transmission and spam from zapping profits.

If this is a concern for you too, then connect with our experts to learn how to protect your network from SMS fraud and revenue leakage today.

In the last three decades, the telecommunication industry has evolved dramatically – from analog telephone lines to digital quad+ play mobile service providers. Today, the telecommunication sector is entering the 5G landscape promising unmatched connectivity and bandwidth.

Technology evolution has spiked the range of available opportunities as well as competition, and unfortunately, malpractices too. Cybercrimes are on the rise as vulnerabilities get exposed. Telecom frauds have become commonplace and need to be addressed on priority as estimates peg their cost at €29 billion per year.

Evolution of Telecom Frauds

The Telecom industry is seen as young, but if we look for the very first telecom fraud, it will take us two centuries back. The first telecom fraud was committed in the 1830s by two French brothers – Francois and Joseph Blanc. The brothers were bankers working at the stock exchange in Bordeaux – primitively trading in government bonds. Owing to the fragmented telecom sector back then, the Blanc brothers found a way of sending messages by “hacking” the telecom network, thus opening the gates to telecom frauds.

Since then, the telecom industry has obviously evolved. Numerous new technologies have been introduced for fraud detection in the telecom industry. But as is always the case, as telecom service providers have gone smart, similarly, telecom hackers too have become proficient.

Today, there are a series of common telecom frauds being reported worldwide. These impact the revenue potential of telecom service providers and hurt customers too.

Let’s understand some of the common telecom frauds the industry is facing:

Traffic Pumping Scheme

It is a revenue-sharing scheme designed by fraudsters who promise to increase traffic to a specific level at a high destination cost. The signature style of this telecom fraud type is to spike traffic to high-cost destinations. Fraudsters take advantage of telecom service provider’s lax security practices. These frauds often leave service providers with large monetary losses. These kinds of attacks often occur during holidays and weekends when networks aren’t monitored closely due to surges and reduced staff loads.

Vishing Calls

This is one of the most common telecom frauds, which is a combination of the word “Voice” and “Phishing.” It is similar to phishing email attacks – the difference is just that fraudsters make calls to the victims. During the vishing calls, fraudsters create a false scenario and trick victims to share their personal, security, or financial information. In some situations, fraudsters even compel victims to transfer money to them. These types of fraud are very hard to detect, and catching fraudsters is even harder.

One-ring-and-cut or Wangari

Wangari is a common scenario in the telecom domain. It is a telecom scam where hackers lure victims to call premium-rate numbers. In this method, fraudsters set a system of a large number of random telephone numbers. They call each phone number up to one ring and leave a missed call on the recipient’s phone.

Usually, when people see a missed call from an unknown number on their phone, they call back, considering it a genuine number, and get their entire call balance lost on calling the premium rate number. It is a very cunning and well-organized telecom fraud practiced around the globe.

International Revenue Sharing Fraud

International Revenue Sharing Fraud, or shortly referred to as IRSF, is one of the most damaging telecom fraud schemes to date. Under this fraud, money is transferred from one carrier to another based on the inter-carrier trust between telecom operators. IRSF telecom fraudsters are very smart; they wait for logs to expire before executing the next step in their money-laundering scheme.

According to the IRS, more than 1,029,601 Americans have received IRSF fraud calls, and approximately $29,100,604 had been lost on these calls in 2016 alone. On the global level, numerous awareness programs and events are organized to protect people from these scam calls, but this telecom fraud is still flourishing.

Call Forwarding Fraud

In this VoIP telecom fraud, criminals gain access to an enterprise PBX system, which they use to make expensive long-distance calls and pocket what they charge to the users. Generally, telecom service providers state that customers are liable to pay for fraudulent calls. But, in reality, it’s hard to make the customer pay for the fraud calls as they could simply disconnect network services and move to another service provider. And all the fraud call financial burden falls on the service provider’s shoulder.

How are telecom frauds impacting revenues?

The global loss due to fraudulent practices in 2019 was $28.3 billion, and telecom fraud has a big share in it. Some of the top fraud types have been payment fraud, IP PBX fraud, abuse of network or device, or configuration weaknesses, and IoT fraud. As it happens, with the explosion of smartphone technology, the number of telecom frauds has also seen a spike as new venues and vulnerabilities open up. In the app economy, a lot of customer validation happens through mobile phones and SMS networks now. In that scenario, Account Takeover frauds are now becoming very common with targeted consumer attacks.

Additionally, as per the Cyber-Telecom Crime Report 2019 published by Trend Micro and Europol, the evolution from switchboard operations to the circuit and packet-switched operators has added to the telecom fraud occurrences causing losses of $33 billion revenue loss each year. The report also reveals that traditional financial criminals are the ones turning their attention to telecom scams. The report has suggested that developing or failed nations are the main originators of telecom fraud that is perpetrated in developed nations like the USA or the UK.

In a nutshell, telecom frauds are unfortunately common as they have continued to evolve at pace with telecom technology. These myriad frauds have shown the potential to adversely impact the revenue of telecom service providers. Also, along with revenue loss, this scenario is also tarnishing the reputation of telecom companies.

Clearly, it is extremely important for telecom service providers to invest in fraud detection and security technologies. The good news is that by partnering with the right telecom solution provider, fraud can be easily detected and avoided.

Until a few years ago, email and SMS were the primary ways to send out business messaging to customers. However, the proliferation of smartphones and the internet have transformed the “business to consumer” communication landscape. From email and SMS, now we have social media, messaging applications and instant messaging all set to influence business messaging.

The digital impact on business messaging

The business messaging landscape is also witnessing rapid evolution as customers become more informed and digitally savvy. As the smartphone becomes an extension of the customer’s life, business messaging has become more refined, contextual, and sophisticated. That apart, along with the ubiquitous SMS, new mobile messaging technologies are becoming a part of the business messaging ecosystem.

Business messaging continues to rise in prominence and importance owing to the growing adoption of digital marketing solutions. With the era of notifications and alerts upon us, enterprises across the globe are looking to deliver quality information regarding their products and service offerings to their potential customers in a medium comfortable to both – the customers and the enterprise. This has been a major contributor to the incremental rise of A2P communication especially for enterprises as they vie to build customer loyalty, boost customer interaction, and build stronger customer relations.

Channels of business messaging have also proliferated because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As more businesses moved online, the need for effective and efficient communication and customer engagement services only increased.

Email marketing, once a very popular and preferred channel for business messaging has slipped down the popularity ladder. Customer inboxes are usually flooded with offer-related emails, making the discovery of relevant information harder consequently leading to low opening rates. Text messages and SMS’s, comparatively experience greater reachability. Gartner reports that “SMS open and response rates as high as 98% and 45%, respectively — in contrast to corresponding figures of 20% and 6% for email.”

This is further expected to contribute to and drive A2P SMS market growth

Enterprise A2P SMS services also continue to rise in prominence for business messaging as it is highly popular amongst startups and small enterprises. Lower costs associated with A2P SMS continue to be a major attraction along with increasing numbers of smartphone and internet users.

SMA retains its power

While SMS still continues to be a powerful business messaging channel, businesses are looking out for technology options that make SMS more engaging. Business messaging too is looking to access functionalities like embedded images, video buttons, animation, suggested replies, etc. readily available on consumer applications. RCS or Rich Communication Services (RCS) builds on this potential by helping businesses achieve truly engaging messaging experiences and bring about a messaging evolution.

Taking both SMS and RCS into account, the messaging industry is expected to grow from 1.55 trillion messages of A2P traffic in 2018 and to surpass the 2 trillion mark by 2023.

However, in the business messaging landscape, despite new developments, SMS technology is set to maintain its important position despite messaging apps continuing to vie for market share. This is especially so as email, though a preferred mode of business messaging, usually ends up in spam folders and has low read rates.

Instant messaging is still navigating regulatory waters as they can be available only as downloaded apps. Since these companies are usually outside of the regulatory control of local governments, enterprises are wary of depending on them and especially for critical functions.

While RCS looks like the most probable candidate, ensuring how to use it to best interact with the customer and get the best cost while doing so is going to be the next frontier to navigate.

Navigating the security landscape

The conversation about the changing dynamics of business messaging is also incomplete without speaking of security. Along with ensuring the quality of communication, maintaining consumer trust using strategies such as two-factor authentication and employing firewall solutions will gain momentum. The use of blockchain to further encrypt messages can bolster the security posture. However, the regulatory chasm still remains to be crossed. As such, it hardly comes as a surprise to see research predicting 3.5 trillion SMS business messages will be sent in 2023 – an increase from the estimated 2.5 trillion in 2019. The focus on A2P messaging will continue to be the preferred enterprise medium to communicate with the customers.

In Conclusion

Voice, premium, instant messaging, SMS, OTT, white route messages, and grey route messages, both, constitute a massive opportunity for telco players and service providers – either to identify opportunities or to evaluate gaps that cause revenue and customer trust to leak and dissipate. While they explore new and potential opportunities that drive profit, building and maintaining customer trust by proactively maintaining a great security posture becomes critical. Elements like Network protection, building trusted, carrier-grade, real-time communications across IP network borders to enhance security, performance, and reliability will contribute to customer retention and revenues. A new world of business messaging is already here.