Written by Amy Ralls | Sep 14, 2022 4:00:00 AM
Salesforce Report on telecom industry points to threat and opportunities facing the telecom industry: This week we focus on a special report from Salesforce on the dangers and risks to the carrier community.
From the Publisher's Desk: News and Reports You Need See [caption id="attachment_158850" align="alignleft" width="115"]
67% of respondents said they would be willing to pay more for 5G. Brand experiences matter. [/caption] “The winds of change are blowing in the communications industry,” cautions a new report out from Salesforce. The process of commodification has set in. The months when workers were sent home, with millions of workers and businesses scrambling to carry on virtually, are over. Hybrid has arrived. Quality experiences matter, now more than ever. It’s a challenge as old as Adam Smith and Charles Darwin. Adapt, invest, evolve, or face the harrowing prospect of fighting to keep customers by fighting a price war.
Brand Experiences Matter Only by creating a brand experience, solving customer problems and more, can companies stay out of the pitched battle of saving share by price. According to the report, 73% of those surveyed expect their telecom company to understand their needs, 62% hope that their telecom will anticipate their needs.
Customers will pay more to get more, creating a brand experience A striking 67% of those surveyed said that they would pay more for wireless services offering 5G. However, Salesforces’ report reinforces what we have been hearing over the past few months about the monetization of 5G: there will be no “killer app” but instead a diverse number of utilizations that will deliver a sustainable return, perhaps made more enduring precisely because 5G enables much more than a single breakaway application. Significantly, 5G also holds the promise of being transformative. 5G has the potential of revolutionizing the way entire industry’s function, and how whole communities operate, the way cities deliver services and so on. Carriers offering 5G can make a long-term investment and expect long term gains. [caption id="attachment_158852" align="alignright" width="534"]
Customers prefer to use a combination of self-service and assisted services. Percentage of customers who use self-service vs assisted-services to make a purchase, activate services, or make account changes [/caption]
Expectations calls for Investment Eighty-eight percent of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services. Of those, the vast majority expect a company to understand and anticipate (62%) their unique needs and expectations. Digital transformation and streamlining operations are key steps to meeting these expectations and providing personalization at scale. The report shines a light internally too. 91% of provider employees said re-imagining operations would reduce bottlenecks and redundant processes, while also helping their companies save money. Ultimately, a mix of investment, change and innovation can create experiences that are critical to operations, offering a path to creating new opportunities.