The future of the telecommunications industry is a starkly different landscape than even three years ago, making telco trends for 2022 more of telco must-haves.
Multiple factors play a huge role in the very survival of telcos within the upcoming decade, including:
As telcos double-down on infrastructure, there’s also a need to align with overall business goals and priorities.
Simply put: Silos must be removed for telcos to be relevant in the future.
Leveling the digital divide: AI, Iot, 5G, and Wifi 6 networks will spur opportunity + growth
Connectivity matters – people want to stay in touch with those they care about.
In the future, unlimited connectivity will become a must for telcos, and technologies like smart homes powered by AI and integrated with Iot will need to be included.
5G will enable:
The expansion of 5G and Wi-Fi 6 networks will offer connectivity in areas that have previously been difficult to reach, further driving connectivity and offering global opportunities to improve businesses, governments, and the lives of people around the world.
Remote workers, manufacturing, telehealth, and education will likely reap big benefits of this telco trend.
While 5G will solve bandwidth demands, it’s up to telcos to select the right revenue streams today to help their companies grow tomorrow.
Word of mouth, including good and bad comments, has the most impact on the volume of business of TV and internet service companies – to the tune of US $172 million.
Source: ROI of Customer Experience
Getting to what matters: Winning the hearts of consumers
Today’s consumers don’t just consider each of their interactions with a business when deciding who to select – they also factor in how a brand portrays itself, what it stands for, and how serious a brand is about cyber-security.
With the evolution of 5G, telcos must consider new services and revenue streams, as well as their overall customer experience.
Over three years, U.S. TV + internet service companies can gain $633 million, while streaming media services can gain $777 million by modestly improving the experience they deliver to customers.
Source: ROI of Customer Experience
Consumers, investors, and partners are increasingly making decisions about your company based on a sustainable business model. Here, we examine the rise of sustainability as a business value.
Every interaction with a brand matters when it comes to overall perception of a company.
From the perspective of the customer, different divisions of your organization don’t matter to them – if they have a bad customer service experience, they don’t care if it’s because you couldn’t access their complete customer profile – they only care that your brand didn’t or couldn’t help them.
82% of telecom consumers would consider alternatives if they experience a poor customer journey. 27% of them would abandon the purchasing process entirely.
Source: US Telecom Report
Everything you need to know about customer experience, including: CX meaning, tools, strategies, measurements, and real life examples.
The Un-carrier Movement: Sparking a revolution – with people at the heart
When T-Mobile launched their Un-carrier movement in 2013, at the heart of it was an effort to become truly people-centric. That ethos delivered the telco giant 22 million new customers in only the first two years.
Their focus on solving customer pain points and continually delivering products and services to ease those areas of friction has proven to be a boon.
And their genuine concern for people doesn’t stop at the people who purchase from them – they’ve fostered a culture within their business to support and empower their employees, and built an empathetic and supportive workforce, from customer service reps to the c-suite.
T-Mobile has also recognized that WFH is a core element of the future of work – and government – and have recently launched products focusing on solving pain points for enterprises, public sector, and citizen engagement.
A connected public sector is critical, especially during a crisis. Organizations need tools to get employees and constituents the resources required to respond quickly and work toward recovery.
Customer satisfaction has always been important to any kind of business growth, but in an era of 24/7 connectivity, it’s more important than ever. Consumers expect a lot from brands – and have eternal brands to choose from.
Service must be part of each step of their journey, from search through post-purchase and beyond.
More than pricing – and the product itself – service is the biggest driver of customer loyalty.
More than pricing, and even the product itself, customer service is a huge driver of customer loyalty. Discover all you need to know about customer service in this deep dive.
92% of adults in the U.S. say they’d switch to another company after three or fewer negative customer service experiences.
Source: Customer Service Expectations Survey
Discover the ROI of modernizing your customer service with Service Cloud HERE.
How to make a workplace work – wherever it is, and whoever you are
Providing a modern workplace means enabling a single source of truth for everything employees and customers need – whether it’s products, services, or solutions. This ensures more productivity, efficiency, sustainability, and cost effectiveness across the board.
By delivering top-of-class customer service via the SAP Commerce Cloud, VIKING was able to improve the customer shopping experience and introduce additional services and revenue streams.
Do you know how to manage Millennials and Gen Z at work? You should - they already make up almost half the full-time workforce.
As the decade unfolds, it will give further way to network edge applications, which will benefit from 5G’s ability to provide the right latency, speed, and battery power.
Meanwhile the customer journey and CX will expand to personal experiences on the edge of the smart network touchpoints as telco trends evolve throughout 2022.
When it comes to telcos, B2B offers greater net profits, and an enterprise and customer base that will spend more for services that are specialized.
Find out how B2B industries like manufacturing and high tech transformed amid the pandemic. Manufacturers had an important realization: Your buying experience should be simple, even if your products aren’t. This is a valuable takeaway for every industry.
SAP customers generate 87% of total global commerce and 94% of the world’s 500 largest companies are SAP customers.
Sources: Primary: BRI, Secondary: Public Company Financial Statements, S&P Global Market Intelligence
In the past, telcos often couldn’t make the financial case for digital investments with regard to B2B. And when investments were made, it was often fractured and siloed – a common situation when trying to merge legacy software with modern technologies.
But as telcos shift to cloud-based applications and services, they’re learning that it’s not a slight change – it’s an entirely new way that clients want to engage and do business.
The biggest players in the B2B space have some shared basics – and yes, you’ll find that customer data is a common theme:
CDPs are one of the fastest growing technology solutions in the market, and it’s easy to see why. Let's take a closer look at the advantages of customer data platforms that are spurring their growing adoption by companies.
Once the above fundamentals are established, digital investments start to make much more sense, and it becomes easier to:
Telcos must break their organizational silos and streamline processes between IT services and other divisions of their companies – complete integration of telco and IT is needed for business growth.
With the upcoming end of third-party cookies, IT teams have a unique opportunity to amplify their impact on revenue growth and customer experience. Read more to find out why…
Customer data and personalization: Can you hear me now?
Today consumers want personalized offers, and they also want control of their own personal data.
22% of consumers are happy to share some data in return for a more personalized service or product.
Source: Rise of mass personalization
Businesses need data to drive those contextual experiences, so it can be a fine line for brands to walk when it comes to balancing customer expectations.
Fortunately, there’s some great solutions to help companies when it comes to customer data and personalization: CDP (customer data platforms) and CIAM (Customer Identity and Access Management).
50% of sports fans want to control content on their mobile device, including unique camera angles. 70% are willing to receive ads + promotions on their mobile device when engaged with relevant event content and services.
Source: Digital Fandom- Are you ready?
What is CIAM, and how can it protect your business and boost CX? This guide has everything you need to know about CIAM.
Electronic consumer brands have seen e-commerce skyrocket in importance, thanks to the ability to meet evolving consumer demands and behaviors.
The global e-commerce market for consumer electronics is $415 billion, and in 2021, almost two billion consumers bought at least one TV, smartphone, radio, or laptop.
Brands that focus on creating experiences, products, and services that revolve around solving customer pain points (home security, simple oversight of plans with multiple users, data security) will be the big winners in the future.
This reality makes it mission-critical that telecommunication companies focus on subscription services that go beyond the product or service, and merge with customer needs, media, and content to strengthen customer engagement and brand loyalty.
The key to building lasting customer relationships? Learn how to unlock real-time customer insights and pain points based on data with a CDP.
Digital marketplaces + commerce
The earliest marketplaces known to humankind were once community-based locations where vendors traveled to set up booths and sell their goods. Today, we’re returning to the community concept with the rise of digital marketplaces.
Digital marketplaces and social commerce play a huge role in how consumers make purchases – social commerce is an $89.4 billion industry that’s expected to be worth to be worth $604.5 billion by 2027 – and many of those shoppers are using their phones to make those purchases.
Consumers expect that they’ll be able to continue their journey with sellers across devices seamlessly, and if they can’t, they’ll go elsewhere to shop.
Retailers that provide frictionless purchasing can achieve a 48% improvement in revenue growth.
Source: Customer Friction factor Study
Actually talking on the phone...not so much. But consumers are choosing mobile commerce for more than half of their e-commerce purchases today - and that number only looks to get bigger. See the trends behind the rise of m-commerce.
Products and services have become commodities in a lot of industries like telco, insurance, and utilities.
How can companies differentiate by expanding into new business models or enlarging their portfolio? We’ve got the solutions in this podcast:
SAP customers with a high level of digital maturity in the telecommunication services industry improved their cost 13% (as a percentage of revenue) over the past five years.
Sources: Primary: BRI, Secondary: Public Company Financial Statements, S&P Global Market Intelligence
In their quest to get closer to customers, it seems like every business is racing to achieve a 360-degree customer profile. Extending well beyond telco trends, this could actually be cited as a business trend.
But is this achievable given the velocity, volume, and variety of customer data available today? How can a business best unify data sources, gain insights, and hyper-personalize engagements in real time? This podcast episode has the answers:
SAP customers in the telecommunication services industry generate a combined revenue of US$1.4 trillion and 97% of the telecommunication services industry’s total revenue.
Source: IDC Review of SAP “Best Run Intelligence” Methodology, April 2021
Discover the benefits of SAP Customer Experience for telcos, a TM Forum compliant solution:
From the most niche of industries to governments, SAP helps each run their best.
