Customer demands on communications service providers have changed dramatically as the world has become increasingly digital. Consumers are craving more personalized services, and CSPs are in a strong position to meet those needs—if they can leverage their vast troves of data. Historically, CSPs have managed their data on their own for a variety of reasons, but as the size, scale and velocity of data accelerates, many CSPs are searching for ways to increase efficiencies and gain a 360-degree view of their customers.
Analytics and artificial intelligence hold the key to moving forward, but improvement is needed. Net Promoter Scores for CSPs tend to be low, and customer experience (CX) is nearing a breaking point.
Real-time insights are key to CX improvements. In most CSP environments, data is spread across multiple business units in different architectures. Organizations must collate and centralize a cohesive data layer, delivered by a scalable cloud infrastructure, to enable analytics-driven insights.
For example, AI can be leveraged to look across data sets of customer issues and offer agents remedies for how to quickly solve customer problems, which reduces time to resolution and empowers more effective agents.
This is one of many back-office and customer-facing functions that can be improved with a cohesive, data-driven strategy.
Moving to a Data-Driven Model
CSPs gain the power of real-time insights across their business when they’re able to combine their network and customer data. This is particularly important in developing new services using technologies like 5G and edge, since CSPs would be limited using old processes.
They need next-generation operational support systems (OSS) and business support systems (BSS) driven by data to optimize pricing and service delivery. The move to cloud enables data-driven operations and offers additional benefits that contribute to CSPs’ success. The most notable include the ability to:
- Deliver improved CX and resolve customer issues—Connecting different data sets with AI-powered tools is the first step toward improving CX with solutions such as Contact Center AI, empowering CSP agents to resolve issues quickly and efficiently. With full visibility enabled by a 360-degree view of the customer, it’s possible to change customer interactions from reactive to proactive, solving issues using data-driven insights and quickly identifying anomalies that occur.
- Empower sales and marketing—With a complete perspective of individual customers, as well as entire customer segments, sales and marketing teams can deliver more personalized offerings. With a data-driven approach, CSPs can implement cross-sell and upsell initiatives more effectively, with new features aligned to each customer’s usage patterns. In addition, targeted bundles can be created on the fly using analytics and intelligent systems to define and drive the offers.
- Enhance and improve retail operations—Although there is more focus on digital interactions, organic experiences in the retail store are still a very important part of CX for CSPs. Cloud-based data and AI solutions allow CSPs to provide more seamless customer experiences whether in-store or online. More important, with a comprehensive, 360-degree view of the customer, CSPs can tie together interactions in the digital and physical worlds for a more consistent omnichannel approach that provides customers a better experience.
- Deliver cost and operational efficiencies—Todays’ competitive environment necessitates the efficiencies that cloud can bring. One of the most important ways to improve efficiency is to integrate data from a myriad of sources, including OSS, BSS, networking and customer data, to provide insight across all aspects of the business. CSPs can use AI to detect and resolve network anomalies faster, improving CX. Comprehensive data also makes it possible for teams to iterate on new projects faster, delivering returns sooner. With the ability to see their data across all their businesses, CSPs can easily identify where inefficiencies are or where current processes aren’t optimal.
- Improve security and privacy—CSPs can use the cloud to deliver integrated operational data, consistent security and privacy policies. Identifying anomalies in network traffic makes it possible to find and remediate threats more quickly. Comparing normal customer usage patterns against any outliers identifies a potential threat in real time. Customers get better, proactive protection, which is a huge CX improvement.
Intel and Google have taken a leadership position in delivering data- and AI-enabled platforms for CSPs looking to drive innovation in their customer experiences and networks. Utilizing the 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon® Processor to deliver performance and agility and Google Cloud’s smart analytics and AI solutions, CSPs can unlock new value through data and AI. The path to becoming a data-driven CSP has become clearer, faster and simpler. To learn more about how Google Cloud can help you transform to a data-driven CSP, view this webinar.
