Have you reached Digital Transformation fatigue yet? It has fast become the most over overused term in many an industry, telecommunications in particular. The term has almost lost all meaning but I think the ‘Digital Vodafone’ initiative nails what’s it’s really all about from a telecoms point of view. It’s about moving from ‘mostly human to mostly digital’ interactions with your customers. This really captures the essence of what operators are trying to achieve from a digital customer management point of view.

For those of you who don’t trawl through the Investor Relations sections of telecoms operators, I have pulled out some of the key metrics that Vodafone are tracking in this regard from their Q1 2018 report. They are looking to move their self-care app penetration rates from 60% in March 2018 to 95% in March 2021. In a nod to the ‘mostly human’ current state, roughly 1% of customer interactions are carried out via a chat bot in March 2018 but they expect this to rise to 60% by 2021. Their Tobi chat bot which they have launched in a number of markets is gaining traction and acceptance by subscribers. It handles 805k interactions per month in the Italian customer base and resolves 70% of queries. This percentage will only rise as the technology behind the chat bot improves. In 2018, an average Vodafone customer will have 1.9 queries per year that require human agent intervention. Based on enhanced self-care penetration and chat bot advancements, they expect this to drop to 1.2 queries per year in 2021.

Getting subscribers to download and interact with their operator in a ‘digital’ way is only half the battle. A recent Gartner report highlighted by Disruptive Asia shows that ‘across all industries at least 84% of consumers say their experiences with using digital tools and services fall short of expectations’. If 60% of Vodafone customers currently have their self-care app installed, what percentage of these customer use it on a weekly basis? From Android data we know that an app will lose 90% of its daily active users in the first 30 days. How can mobile operators buck this trend and create an experience that will see subscribers not only downloading but actively engaging with their services? It starts with providing a seamless and speedy on boarding journey and by making sure all possible changes can be enabled via the self-care app. In an upcoming webinar, we explore 10 ways that mobile operators can become a digital companion for their subscribers. Click here to learn why service providers are using apps to increase customer interaction and revenues at all stages in the customer lifecycle.