75 policy and charging use cases, and counting
octubre 24, 2016 - Openet
When you review a booklet that has a big number in its title, there is, surely, a little bit of you that starts humming familiar songs. In this case, ‘75 Ways Policy and Charging Can Boost Your Business’ became ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’ followed, slightly alarmingly, by ‘one million bicycles in Beijing’.
Then, of course, you think ‘Really? 75? Policy and Charging Use Cases? Proper ones?’
It turns out the answer is yes. 75.
Real-time specialist Openet has collected, collated and brain stormed 75 practical examples that can boost an operator’s business. What is impressive is that almost without exception, they are in use, somewhere around the world. As such, it is an extremely interesting and useful collection.
What many of the examples demonstrate is that IT – as we know and love it – is almost irrelevant. They are based – primarily – on common sense.
What many of them also show is that some operators have managed to turn data, which has become a commodity in simple pricing terms, to a valuable tool in managing customers’ loyalty, expectations and lifetime value. For example, why not give a customer a present on his contract anniversary. On his first, you could give him and extra GB, his second two and so on. You could also do this on his birthday.
The concept of using data as a ‘gift’ or a reward is a strong theme in the early use cases. If a customer pays on time, reward him with data. If a customer has been with you a certain amount of time, say ‘thank you’ with some extra data.
One thing that is particularly interesting at the moment is how many operators ‘keep’ the unused data at the end of the month. This is, of course, psychological, but Virgin Media did a survey in Australia that showed overwhelmingly that customers think it is unfair to pay for something and then have it ‘taken away’. Almost all the respondents said it would be great to be able to hold onto, or roll over their data allowances. Again, good old common sense (in fact, Virgin Media didn’t need to do the survey, they could have just phoned DisruptiveViews). In Korea, customers can even ‘borrow’ data from their next month’s allowance, and even though this will probably lead to them buying more (as they borrow more and more), it is a very interesting offering.
Read more at Disruptive Views.
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