As telcos strive to stay relevant in the increasingly competitive telecommunications landscape, doubling down on omnichannel experiences has become a cornerstone of business growth. Top telcos and industry experts agree that composable commerce is the key to seamlessly unifying customer journeys in this sector.
“Today, CX is the key differentiating factor for creating value in telecommunications,” stated McKinsey. “Our research shows that 73 percent of senior telco executives see it as a top priority.” Indeed, as the telecommunications industry continues to face sluggish growth and dwindling returns, operators are employing various strategies to boost growth. In addition to diversifying their portfolio, telcos are increasingly improving their omnichannel customer experiences to prevent customer churn and outpace competitors.
Today’s telcos are diversifying their consumer (as well as business) offerings to stay competitive. While mobile, broadband and other core telecom services remain part of the portfolio, more companies are providing packages with streaming services, gaming bundles, and even home security services, all on top of the “traditional” connectivity.
While portfolio expansion presents an immense opportunity, there are three main challenges telcos should consider:
Product diversification means more complex product catalogs and, as a result, maintaining product and inventory data appropriately.
With many products available, consumers might have multiple subscriptions on the same operator, making it difficult to create a unified customer profile.
Telecom operators must focus on the complete customer lifecycle across web, mobile, in-store and even more cutting-edge touchpoints, such as Alexa, taking customer, product and inventory data into account for adequate omnichannel experiences.
As you probably know, an omnichannel strategy is a seamless and integrated approach to customer engagement that combines various channels, including online platforms, mobile apps, physical stores and customer service touchpoints. For an omnichannel approach to be fully successful, it requires having access to a single view of inventory, orders, customer data and more in one central system. This requirement has led to the next phase in the omnichannel evolution: Unified commerce.
Leveraging unified commerce enables telecommunications companies to deliver a more seamless and consistent experience regardless of channel while simplifying operations by reducing redundancy and improving data accuracy.
The role of composable commerce for unified telecom experiences
Delivering unified commerce requires centralizing marketing, sales and purchasing data onto a single platform to power interactive experiences, personalized content and transaction processing across all channels. After all, consumers expect the same experience, product availability, pricing and quality of service whether they walk into a store, call customer service, visit a website, check an app or ask Alexa.
However, many telcos lag behind due to legacy technologies that aren’t flexible or scalable enough to support such integration. That’s where composable commerce comes in.
Composable commerce is the next frontier in digital commerce technology, moving away from slow-to-update, inflexible legacy systems and embracing a modular, component-based solution. With the composable approach, telecom operators can choose components to customize customer journeys and orchestrate them in the way that works best for their business.
For the telecommunications industry, a composable approach makes crafting customer experiences across multiple journeys and channels much easier and faster. The flexibility and scalability of composable commerce allow telcos to manage all journeys, channels, business models and even sub-brands from one platform. Instead of a fragmented IT landscape that increases the risk of inconsistencies in product, pricing, customer and inventory data management, a composable commerce platform enables telcos to manage all online, mobile or in-store interactions in one place.
Having a single platform behind the scenes also means that customer data, purchase history, and preferences can be accessed and used to personalize interactions both online and in-store. Businesses can simplify inventory management as a single system tracks stock levels and updates them in real-time, reducing the risk of overselling or underselling products.
Unlike monolithic systems, which require separate backends for every frontend, composable commerce offers the flexibility to operate multiple brands, sites and channels, delivering unique experiences to each while connecting them all to a single backend. This approach allows adding and updating frontends without disrupting ongoing commerce operations or impacting performance.
Lastly, the component-based, cloud-native, tech-agnostic design of composable commerce fully aligns with the ODA framework created by TM Forum, accelerating the industry’s shift from monolithic, legacy IT stacks towards more agile and plug-and-play environments.
What does successful unified commerce in telecom look like
When a unified approach to commerce isn’t in place, customer experiences are disjointed and fragmented, such as:
A customer goes to a store and buys a product. Later, the customer decides to buy an additional item that is unavailable online.
A customer wants to experience a product in-store before purchasing but finds it’s only sold online.
A customer might speak to a sales rep and receive a quote for a higher price than advertised online.
All of these very realistic scenarios are frustrating to the customer, who may decide to swap providers. That’s why a unified commerce strategy is vital to ensure that customers interact with the brand seamlessly, purchase products, manage accounts and receive support through their preferred channels without any disruption or loss of information.
Here are four examples of unified journeys for the telecom sector:
Most telcos have a retail presence for consumers to experience products, inquire for more information, subscribe to services, and more. To provide seamless and cohesive services, physical and digital channels must be connected. This integration enables consumers to perform tasks such as checking their data consumption status and receiving personalized promotions that can be redeemed both in-store and online.
A great example of phygital that gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic is omnichannel fulfillment. BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store) and related variations, such as curbside pick-up, have remained popular. The ability to initiate a transaction online and complete it in-store ensures a seamless experience that makes the lives of customers easier. Physical stores can also feature digital kiosks and interactive displays where customers can explore products and services, learn about their features and compare different plans.
Finally, hybrid sales models enable customers to research and compare plans online, receive virtual sales assistance and finalize purchases in-store or via direct shipping.
Many customers interact with their telecom operator through customer support. With a unified approach, consumers can interact with customer service across multiple channels — such as online chat, phone calls, email, social media and physical stores — while receiving consistent and personalized assistance throughout their journey.
This strategy ensures that customers can initiate support queries through their preferred channel and continue or escalate them as needed without repeating information. The goal is to provide a cohesive support experience that enhances customer satisfaction, resolves issues efficiently and builds loyalty by leveraging integrated systems that centralize customer interactions and data across all touchpoints.
A cohesive customer service across channels ensures that support queries started on a website chat can continue over the phone and receive follow-up assistance through email or social media, with all interactions logged for seamless assistance.
Today, most consumers manage their telecom accounts through mobile apps. Seamlessly connecting online and in-store experiences has become paramount, a strategy that ensures the mobile app is synchronized with all other touchpoints is crucial, allowing customers to manage their accounts, upgrade devices and explore new plans on the small screen.
Telecommunications loyalty programs play a crucial role in fostering customer retention and engagement by rewarding customers for their continued business and advocacy. These programs typically offer various incentives such as discounts on services, exclusive offers on devices, priority customer service and points for future rewards.
The role of unified commerce in loyalty programs is all about providing a personalized experience across all customer touchpoints, allowing customers to earn and redeem rewards seamlessly, regardless of their preferred interaction method.
Personalization is also a cornerstone of this strategy: By leveraging data from various channels, telcos can tailor offers and loyalty marketing based on individual customer preferences, behavior and usage patterns. This can be immensely helpful in reducing customer churn and increasing brand stickiness.
For example, Verizon Up, a loyalty program, allows customers to earn rewards for every payment made toward their monthly bills or for purchasing products and services. Customers can redeem rewards for various perks, such as device discounts, event tickets and streaming subscriptions. The program integrates seamlessly with Verizon’s online platforms, mobile app and in-store interactions, providing a unified customer experience.
Get your commerce unified with composable
Telecom operators are increasingly moving away from disparate legacy platforms and unifying commerce in one composable commerce platform to ensure customer experiences are seamless. Only this way can they capitalize on having one single source of truth for product, inventory and customer data to power cohesive experiences across multiple channels without missing a beat.
Discover commercetools for Telecom, a dedicated composable commerce solution for telecommunications operators and providers globally.
Manuela Marques Tchoe is a Content Writer at commercetools. She was a Content and Product Marketing Director at conversational commerce provider tyntec. She has written content in partnership with Facebook, Rakuten Viber and other social media platforms.