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.