6 flavors of up-selling telecom services

Telcos have mastered the art of cross-selling and up-selling over the last 15 years. They have established the Customer Value Management (CVM) function within their organizations to enhance revenue streams and foster customer loyalty.

The CVM Team is responsible for customer segmentation and campaign execution to increase CLV (Customer Lifetime Value), generate Incremental Revenue, cross-sell, upsell, increase ARPU (Average Revenue Per User), manage Churn, and Retention.

Leveraging sophisticated capabilities such as Generative AI, Deep Packet Inspection, and Complex Event Processing has become instrumental in achieving these objectives. This article explores 6 distinct flavors of cross/up-selling strategies.

Download the diagrams here.

1.) Outbound Campaign

The first use case involves proactively reaching out to customers through SMS or email with cross/up-selling campaigns. The Customer Analytical Record, calculated using customer data and usage data, includes metrics such as a particular customer's propensity to travel abroad or propensity to accept a roaming offer. The CVM Team can create segments based on the Customer Analytical Records and send targeted campaigns to customers. Whether the customer accepts the offer or not, the CVM Team gains insights into the customer's preferences. In case the offer is accepted, the service provisioning is automatically triggered in the respective systems.

2.) Outbound Campaign with Generative AI

The previous use case can be enhanced by AI. Generative AI can create engaging, personalized copywriting for campaigns. Moreover, offer parameters and pricing can be defined using AI to maximize profitability - based on the previous campaigns’ responses.

3.) Inbound Campaign

In this use case, cross/up-selling is triggered when the customer initiates interaction with the telecom operator. This involves visiting a retail store, calling the Contact Center, using the mobile app, or opening the web self-care pages of the telecom operator. The Next Best Action should be defined for this event in line with revenue generation or retention objectives for this particular customer. In the case of retail or Contact Center, the customer service representative sees the offer in the CRM system and proposes the offer to the customer. In the case of web or mobile app, the offer is displayed to the customer - which can be accepted, declined, or kept pending.

4.) Event-driven

A CEP (Complex Event Processing) system analyzes a large volume of data in real-time to identify meaningful patterns, correlations, and actionable insights. It enables operators to build event-driven marketing. For example, if the customer runs out of balance, they receive a promotional SMS/Email informing them that they will receive a free 30-minute on-net call add-on if they recharge their balance with more than 10 USD today. As part of the implementation, the Charging system and network elements provide event data to the CEP system, which then calls the Campaign Management to send the promotion to a specific customer.

5.) Deep Packet Inspection

A DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) system is used to inspect the content and header of data traffic as they pass through the network infrastructure. It enables innovative mobile plans (for example unlimited Instagram usage), as well as context-based marketing. For example, sending a promotional offer of the telecom operator’s own Video-On-Demand service to a customer who just watched Netflix. As part of the implementation, the DPI and CEP systems are integrated to detect Netflix traffic for a specific customer, which then triggers the sending of an offer to that customer.

6.) Geofencing

Geofencing sends SMS/Email to a particular customer who is nearby to a 3^rd party partner. This involves collaboration between the mobile operator and various partners, such as retail stores. As part of the implementation, the operator integrates CEP with the network, utilizes its location information, and triggers the 3rd party’s promotional offer to the customer.

Where up-selling fails

CVM often ignores the full context of the customer and causes frustration:

1. When past campaign responses are not taken into consideration

   Imagine you receive the same offer from the telecom operator that you declined just two weeks ago.

2. When ongoing complaint is ignored
   Imagine having signal and internet problems. You reported the issue and got no response, but you received upselling messages.

3. When recent bill shock is ignored

   Imagine paying double the usual phone bill, because some international calls cost a fortune last month. Then the mobile operator sends a belated offer of an add-on for international minutes.

How to do it right?

1. Maintain an up-to-date holistic view of every aspect of the customer experience in a central repository

   • Service degradations

   • Trouble tickets

   • Bill shocks

   • Churn signs

   • Campaign oversaturation

2. Avoid frustrating the customer

   • Pause marketing campaigns automatically for a customer with service degradation, open trouble ticket, or bill shock.

3. Proactive anti-churn

   • Automatic retention flow to give freebies to a customer who browses the competitor’s website or has a service degradation.

Thus, CVM is nothing but targeting the right customer, at the right moment, with the right offer.

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This is a personal post. The views and opinions expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent those of any organization or any individual with whom the author may be associated, professionally or personally.