1. What benefits does the CRM approach bring to a telecom carrier?

We would like to note that the CRM approach allows the company to adapt marketing solutions and pricing policies to the average customer value, competition and customer demands, with all of these factors varying across geographical regions.

Another important aspect is the creation of targeted offerings for high-value and corporate customers. It is also noteworthy, that CRM methods enable the carrier to efficiently roll out new products, specifically tailored for existing customers.

2. Can a company, not holding the leadership position, achieve significant results in a target segment and gradually capture a larger market share?

Of course, a company may opt for a niche strategy and offer a broad range of services in this niche, based on CBOSS technologies and expertise of our consultants.

Most offerings you make will be totally innovative, first of all, due to the new features of CBOSS products, which would allow the company to increase penetration in the niche segment and capture larger market share.

3. What do marketing specialists need to develop a marketing campaign?

Databases store huge amounts of customer data. For each customer we know what services he/she uses, what services he/she is interested in but is not yet using regularly, how much he/she is willing to pay, how often and for what reason he/she is suspended, etc. However, information on customer preferences, lifestyle, etc is missing – i.e. information which may be relevant for marketing specialists. What are usually marketing specialists interested in and what methods do they use to obtain the necessary information?

4. What CRM technologies are designed for churn prevention?

To prevent customer churn, we need to understand:

1. Churn dynamics (how much time is left for decision-making)
2. Reasons for churn maintaining negative tendencies (what we need to do to decrease churn)
3. What value segments have the highest churn rate (meaning more or less profit lost depending on the segment value).

What should be done:

• Primary analysis of customer data to determine churn dynamics and, possibly, identify associated tariffs, etc.
• Reasons for churn may be immediately obvious (for example, unattractive VAS services, tariffs) or not so evident. In the latter case, reasons for churn may be identified by CRM analysis of service consumption profiles. Such profile includes a set of parameters (for example, charges generated by a certain type of services) and restrictions characterizing each customer
• Value segmentation (value and profitability indices, developed by CBOSS experts may be applied) to identify segments with the highest churn rates. Effort targeting at high-value segments. Evaluation of profit lost due to customer churn.

What to do in case of high churn rates:

Usually, in this case churn reasons become evident already during primary analysis. These may include expiration of a campaign which offered especially appealing tariffs, new campaigns rolled out by the competitors, etc. This requires aggressive campaigns targeted at customers likely to churn, such as new offers or loyalty bonuses.

In case of low-grade churn, we need to build a churn model, forecast which customers are likely to churn, and implement targeted campaigns based on service consumption profiles. It is noteworthy, that customer behavior modeling may show how good the tariffs match customer demand.

5. How can CRM approach be used in customer acquisition and service promotion for new customers?

If we take well-developed and highly competitive market with high penetration rates, then customer base growth is enabled by:

• Acquisition of hesitating customers using the services of multiple operators
• Acquisition of customers belonging to competitive carriers.

In both cases, we need a customizable approach to such customers.

We can identify such customers by:

1. Analyzing forwarded calls (if a customer uses several SIM cards and has activated call forwarding)
2. Churn probability analysis (churn forecasting models)
3. Call analysis by directions – calls to customers of competitive carriers classified by customer value and behavior (to account for customer specifics).

6. How can an operator use large volumes of customer data to generate additional revenue from advertising (SMS, RBT, etc)?

Each operator possesses invaluable knowledge about its customers and can use this knowledge to generate additional revenue, for example, by advertising.

Customer segmentation allows accurate description of the target audience for various marketing campaigns.

SMS and RBT advertising may be particularly appealing to youngsters, advanced users, etc, and campaigns may be precisely targeted at these segments.

Customers who have listened to an advertisement or use an advertising ring back tone may be entitled to various bonuses or discounts.

Value Added Service Portfolio for Successful Telecoms

Participants will describe their VAS portfolio and discuss an ideal value-added service portfolio to enable success of a telecommunications company. Services to be included to improve ARPU, customer loyalty, competitiveness, and subscriber acquisition will be discussed.

Proposed discussion issues:

1. Optimal number of services in a VAS portfolio
   How many and what value-added services should a telecom provide? How often is it necessary to launch new services? What share in the revenue structure should value-added services have? What is this share now?
2. Your ideas of a successful value-added service
   What types of services are the most popular with you subscribers now? What amount are your customers ready to spend on value-added services?
3. Major trends in VAS product development
   What services can be demanded by your customers in the nearest future? Do you plan to deploy 3G? What new services in your network can 3G enable? Estimate the possible popularity of video services (video calls, video RBT, video IVR, video portal, mobile TV, etc).
4. Successful VAS marketing strategy
   Do you sell value-added services yourself or prefer cooperation with content/service providers and MVNOs? How many partners do you have? How active should a marketing dpt. be in promotion of value-added services? How important is customer segmentation and segment-focused service offering? How is it implemented in your company?
5. Service bundling (one price for all)
   Do you apply this approach? Can this approach be effective?
6. Prospects of applications automatically downloaded to end-user devices
   Transferring part of service logics to an end-user device improves service usability (address book names automatically replacing mobile numbers, easy paging, more ergonomic information presentation, etc.). However, a subscriber needs to download and configure the application. Another problem is compatibility with different devices. Are your customers ready for such applications?