Telstra goes after customer lifetime value through customer advocacy
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David Thodey, CEO of Telstra, in one of the Telstra stores. Source: The Australian[/caption]
Telstra’s outgoing CEO, David Thodey, decided over the past six years to cut somewhat of a different path from his predecessor; no better exemplified than by the fact that he placed customer advocacy right at the hear of it all.
In a recent interview the telco’s director of corporate marketing, Inese Kingsmill, recently said “we fundamentally believe that customer advocacy has to underpin any growth that the business is going to be able to achieve, whether that’s in the core of our business or in growth markets.”
What underpins such a strong belief in creating customer advocacy is that in creating and raising advocacy, the lifetime value of customers increases in relation to this. Customer lifetime value (CLV) can be a strong proponent for growth and in Telstra’s case they see advocacy effects on CLV as a key driver of growth.
To test all this, within the Telstra marketing team a research and analytics function has been developed and deployed, of which a key component is the Net Promoter Score®. NPS for Telstra is critical in understanding the ongoing engagement of their customers, so they may track those who become less or more engaged over periods of time, after which they can drill deeper to find out why.
Such research has allowed Telstra’s marketing team “to look at value pools and to be able to create the right types of offerings, construct these offerings that we can take to market and deliver to people in a way that is relevant to their needs,” said Kingsmill.
There has been a marked shift in recent years for Telstra from engineering organization to one more orientated towards marketing and brand image, and by putting the customer front and center they are on the right path to strengthening that image even more.
Read more about all the changes at Telstra right here.
One way telcos can save billions
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Providing a unified channel of communication with customers reduces costs[/caption]
Turning our gaze upon the European now, Telco’s there are so close to creating real fulfilling customer experiences that could not only raise their NPS but reduce churn, all that’s needed is an omni-channel CRM approach.
In a recent study by Swedish consultancy Northstream it was found that Western European mobile operators could save up to $4.6 billion annually in expenditure costs and cut churn by 10%. The report claimed that they need to embrace a more holistic picture of their subscribers by combining the information from various channels into one consistent view of the customer. Meaning the collection of data from and communicating with customers through SMS, social media, phone, apps, in-store and online transactions.
The findings showed that information was increasingly becoming ever more incomplete as customer data was not being shared across channels. So for example a common problem would be that a customer’s online data or call center interactions would not be available to in-store staff. This all amounts to such things as duplicated workloads, greater IT and back office costs and a poor experience for customers who feel they are ultimately repeating themselves.
While a streamlined process to create better CRM meant not just a reduction in costs but the possibility of improving one’s NPS. This was found to lead to a 10% reduction in annual churn, which in turn lowers service costs even further.
To read more about how the European telecommunication companies are missing out, click right here.
Minor League Baseball is hitting a Net Promoter homerun
Minor League Baseball is having a resurgence in popularity and they have the Net Promoter® Score to show for it. In a recent study more than 20,000 game attendees were surveyed, covering 40 minor league teams from eight of the fifteen leagues, and looking at both single-game and season ticket holders. What came out of it all was that the game day experience was given an NPS of 58.
Such a score is also a great indicator of how minor league baseball is increasing in popularity again, corresponding perfectly against their resurgence in attendance numbers. The year of 2014 brought in 42.4 million people, the third highest in the organization’s 114 year history.
Coolblue implements Whatsapp for even better customer experience
The Dutch online retailer of consumer electronics, Coolblue has added Whatsapp to the list of it customer interactions channels. Customer issues will now be able to be addressed through Whatsapp, and Coolblue is finding out some interesting things about the medium. For the NPS of using Whatsapp as a contact channel is higher than any other contact channel they use.
What is key in all this is not the choice of Whatsapp, but that Coolblue is listening to their customers. They are happy to embrace a new communication channel, if that eventually leads to a better customer experience.
Although in Dutch, the article can be found here.
In Brief
Comrise a professional services staffing agency and consultancy in Workforce solutions, managed IT and Big Data has published a score this week of 74.
Labor Finders International, a privately held industrial labor staffing franchise has come out with a score of 55.1.
Multinational telecommunications and IT services giant, the Colt Group S.A. has a score of 23, impressive for the telecommunications industry.
Appdynamics, the application intelligence company has posted all-time company high 87.
Croatian mobile network operater, Vipnet, posted a score this week of 79.
