Becoming a Digital Telco Company

Today’s telco companies must catch up as customer expectations in the new digital-first world are rapidly changing.

Consumers want simple, flexible and transparent digital experiences. But there are many telco companies still not providing it — and slow-moving telecoms risk falling behind.

An important aspect of digital transformation is making the purchase phase easy. For example, many telco operators still require customers to buy products and services via telephone. Telcos must adapt because there is an increasing demand for a flexible, connected customer journey.

There are many benefits to becoming a digital telco company. Delivering consistent digital experiences across the customer journey can have significant results. Your business can decrease costs, increase customer satisfaction and grow digital revenues.

So, shifting to digital channels to improve long-term customer engagement and experience should be a top priority for telco companies.

What is digital telco?

Technological advancements such as 5G, Big Data, artificial intelligence (AI), content streaming, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are driving brands in the telco market to shift to digital.

Digital telco describes telecom operators leveraging these new technologies to redefine how they operate and interact with their customers.

A digital telecom offers a website or app where customers can order products and services. Thanks to a fully automated buying experience, orders are fulfilled instantly.

Digital technologies also help companies streamline internal processes, such as avoiding duplicate data entry or the need to jump between systems. By creating a seamless multi-channel customer journey, you improve customer experience and build loyalty.

Digital telecoms offer customers support using AI and chatbots. With intuitive apps, mobile experiences are frictionless. And hyper-personalisation is made possible by gaining insight from every interaction.

Customers expect great commerce experiences and consistent interactions across all channels. Getting digital right has never been more critical, especially when one bad experience can mean lost business, revenue, and customers.

Digital commerce is becoming a primary driver of growth. Telcos adopting a customer-centric and digital-forward approach to their products and services stay ahead of the competition.

Why is digital commerce so important for telco businesses?

With digital experiences gradually increasing over the recent years, the pandemic only accelerated this demand for digital transformation.

Digitalisation presented new opportunities for telcos, including digital commerce becoming a primary driver of growth. That’s why many telcos are embracing new digital-first platforms to deliver better customer experiences.

Digital commerce provides telcos with the ability to create seamless customer journeys and experiences. It also means lower acquisition costs, higher customer satisfaction, and increased digital revenues.

We deep dive into the end-to-end digital commerce experience in the Digital Commerce Transformation for Communication Service Providers e-book. We discuss why telcos and communication service providers (CSPs) must win at digital commerce wherever their customers can find them.

Accelerating your digital transformation has many advantages for your company and customers, too. You can improve agility, get offers to market faster, and add new commerce channels easily. Companies that are slow to digital transformation will fall behind.

Telcos that rise to the challenges of digital commerce will thrive in this competitive new world. Read the e-book now to learn how your company can accelerate its digital transformation to increase agility, grow digital revenues, and much more.

Challenges for digital telco companies

We’ve come to expect modern commerce features, such as personalisation and a cross-channel shopping cart. But these aren’t available when buying smartphones, service plans, internet packages, and entertainment subscriptions. That’s why telcos face unique barriers when it comes to upping their commerce game.

Fragmentation is another challenge for telecoms shifting to digital. Historically, you’d have created your tech stack and data store and will have now discovered there’s no single view of the customer. This will significantly impact multi-channel personalisation and result in an inconsistent and disjointed customer journey. Your company must break down silos and create a single source of truth — a 360-degree view of the customer.

To become a great digital retailer, telcos must overcome many challenging barriers. One solution that we believe is key to this is the integration of your internal operations, processes and systems in a way that is optimised for your business.

A technical integration can mean your digital commerce is hyper-personalised, merchandising is timely and informed, and shopping moves seamlessly across channels — so you can win in this highly competitive new digital world.

Find out more about the big barriers telcos face going digital and how your business can rise to the challenge in our e-book Digital Commerce Transformation for Communication Service Providers.