Telecoms services will move online

Telcos will increase their focus on online platforms for telecommunications services in an attempt to combat costs in a competitive market, according to analyst firm Ovum.

Ovum’s new report, ‘Customer Service: Where are Telcos Investing?’, states that online portals will be a major investment focus for telcos in the future.

This is because telcos are under pressure from disruptive competitors like Apple and Amazon, Ovum said. Online portals present a way for telcos to improve their services in the face of this new competition.

“Web-based customer service delivers on accessibility and consistency and has the added benefit of diverting costs away from more expensive alternatives such as contact centres. In addition, it has the ability to scale without adding massively to costs, so it’s easy to see why telcos are increasingly viewing it as a high investment priority,” said Clare McCarthy, practice leader at Ovum and co-author of the report.

Customer service is becoming more of a problem for telcos because of the growth of the smartphone market and the resultant rise in mobile broadband traffic, which places a greater burden on telco customer service infrastructure, according to Ovum.

“Queries regarding smartphones can take 10 times longer to resolve than those for high-end mobile devices that were available five years ago. This is driving investment in online portals that enable customers to self-serve their smartphone problems,” Ovum said.

These self-service portals allow customers to solve their own problems, such as resetting passwords and checking account balances.

“If portals are easy to navigate, and customers can see that their issue has been resolved satisfactorily, they are more likely to be happier with their telco supplier. However, this is not the whole story, as not all customers want to use online customer service,” McCarthy said.

“Telcos know they must follow the customer journey on the customer’s terms. It is for this reason that even telcos continue to improve their service offers in retail stores and via the contact centres,” she said.