The market value of telecom services in 2017 will be 326 billion Euros and 297 billion Euros in North America and Europe respectively, as reported by online statistics portal Statista. This influential industry continues to expand with the addition of new technological trends.
Statista also predicted that smartphone users across the world will reach 2659.4 million by 2019. Therefore, the companies from telecom sector need to apply a combination of right people and management techniques to capture the market in future. This domain also needs outside support in the form of outsourcing services to improve the operations.
The services that are generally outsourced by telecom sector include:
Telecom billing software
Telecom companies are always in a quest of firm that can offer billing software with numerous advanced features. Usually, customization as per the unique business requirements and ability to support both prepaid and postpaid services is the criteria for choosing the billing software.
Customer support
Telecom industry is one of the biggest domains that need premium customer support in order to maintain loyalty of customers. This service is usually outsourced due to cost-effectiveness and access to proficient support agents.
Inventory management
This service requires the blend of software support and skilled manpower. It is usually utilized to decrease the number of lost phones during shipping.
Let's analyze different factors that help telecom companies in choosing outsourcing vendors.
Ability to evolve
Whether it's a billing solution provider or customer support vendor, every firm needs to evolve with changing time. If the services provider does not modify itself, it will reach a stagnant stage. As a result, its quality of the services will degrade with time, which will directly impact your business.
Let's take an example. A vendor ‘ABC' was offering subscriber verification services to various telecom companies. After June 2012, the regulations associated with lifeline scheme in the U.S. became more stringent. Therefore, the telecom companies needed to verify the eligibility of applicants through multiple parameters. But the vendor ‘ABC' was unable to meet the requirements as per the new regulations, which affected the business of its clients. Therefore, it is always wise to select a vendor that can adapt as per the changing times.
Availability of multichannel customer support
Telecom subscribers can ask a query through any medium. For example, a high school student using a cellphone will prefer social media sites to post a query/complaint. On the other hand, baby boomers will rely on phone call support to get their issues resolved. Some customers will even use more than one channel to connect with the telecom brand. Therefore, companies need to choose a vendor that offers support through every channel. That's not all! Outsourcing vendor must be able to integrate all the channels so that tracking of customer satisfaction level becomes easy.
Self-service is another dimension of customer support, which is appreciated by customers. In fact, the report known as Global State of Multichannel Customer Service stated that 90 percent of customers expect the brand to provide a portal for self-service support, as of 2015. Customers also prefer using this medium for tracking their billing information by entering details into their online account. This reflects the importance of self-service in both customer support and billing system.
Expertise in the domain
It is said an expert partner has the capability to turn your dream into reality. This is at least true in the case of outsourcing vendors that provide billing solution or customer support to telecom sector.
Billing solution firm can only provide advanced software if it understands the challenges of telecom companies from every dimension. And to analyze their problems, the billing solution company must have expert knowledge related to telecom industry. The company must also be creative enough to design the software that matches all the current and future needs of telecom sector.
This factor is also applicable for call center outsourcing vendors. First of all, the customer support solution provider must have years of experience in handling different types of customer. You should also ensure that service provider has handled multiple projects from telecom sector successfully in the past.
Use of data analytics
We have discussed above how the ability to evolve is the key factor while choosing a service provider. Data analytics is one such practice by service providers, which is the result of evolution. Several contact centers implement this technique to identify different types of users. It has helped the vendors to offer effective solution based on the type of customer that contacts the company. The analytics can be utilized to track the detailed sales reports.
The telecom companies can also use analytics by taking support of contact centers to promote their services to a specific set of telecom users. This will drastically increase the response rate related to marketing campaign making it more economical. Therefore, the service providers that use data analytics in their operations deserve higher consideration as compared to those which operate without them.
Conclusion
By choosing the appropriate vendor, you will be able to streamline your processes and also satisfy your target customers. These benefits will ultimately pave the way to transform your telecom company into trusted and popular brand.
