What Does a Telecom Company Need to Get Right?

According to McKinsey, a telecom company needs highly efficient, automated self-services. Telecom companies play a key role in automating the sales and service processes of other sectors. Now they must automate their own. This can be achieved by:

First, Telcos must do a better job of creating a compelling online experience. Too many Web sites or a poorly-designed Web site stumps consumers, who don't understand what information is being sought and find them hard to navigate through. For example, it may be possible to book a repair online, but not to check when the technician is coming, so the customer gives up and picks up the phone.

Secondly, Telcos must also use state-of-the-art sales approaches on their Web sites. Managers who fear that the online channel is a less effective sales tool than a human being who sells to another human being miss the point. Well-performing Web sites are capable of achieving higher sales per interaction than call centers do; it's a matter of execution.

Thirdly, companies can, for example, deploy sophisticated interactive sales approaches customized for specific kinds of customers and what they are trying to accomplish. Such tailored pitches achieve high close rates; Amazon, for instance, knows who you are and what you have purchased in the past, and it immediately woos you with personalized merchandising. Well-structured sites can segment customers into low-potential prospects - who are served cheaply online - and good prospects - who are directed to pick up the phone to complete a service or sales transaction that began online. This approach allows call-center employees to work their magic, but more efficiently and effectively. The tremendous flexibility, provided by Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and dynamic HTML, is an invaluable tool for giving each consumer this kind of unique service and sales experience — a "virtual store" designed for every individual. But such a careful tailoring of the online experience requires the marketing and IT functions to work together, closely.

The cost of coordinating a problem across separate functions is therefore high, as is the potential for error - which might be a result of rekeying information, for instance - so a delayed response to the customer is inevitable. Such processes are ripe for improvement, including better automation. Telecom companies that want to tackle their back-office problems successfully should bank on the use of IT as the glue to hold cross-functional processes together.