The telecom industry has been through its share of ups and downs over the years. It not only has had to deal with market saturation but also with abysmal churn rates and declining customer delight. Add to this the drying SMS revenue stream due to tough competition from OTT messaging platforms; Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) need to up their game and provide the best to their subscribers to pique customer interest.

However, not all is grim! With 5G and a multitude of emerging, promising technologies on the horizon, MNOs now stand a chance to not only improve and optimise their services but also add new revenue streams. Network operators can compete with the best OTT platforms with RCS, AI, and machine learning.

Despite being at the forefront of tech innovations with their digital-first approach, operators worldwide have struggled to improve customer experience journeys. Less than 40% of subscribers agree that their carrier services provide good customer service. Surveys also show that a large proportion of the customer base is highly unsatisfied with their carrier’s customer service. This is disappointing in the large scheme of things to improve customer satisfaction and retention.

These responses are very strong indicators of customer dissatisfaction and directly impact the churn rate. This is a prominent problem, with digitization of the customer experience journey being the answer. And WhatsApp Business for telcos is a vital part of the solution. Read to know how WhatsApp Business for telcos can help transform customer experience and boost revenues.

Why turn to WhatsApp Business?

Why turn to the competition responsible for slashing P2P SMS revenues, the core of the revenue stream of operators? The answer is simple, with high CAPEX and increased investment in infrastructure, customer service has to be improved at a low cost. And WhatsApp Business can help accelerate digitization by providing operators with an omnichannel engagement of subscribers. Let’s see how.

These numbers indicate that despite fierce competition from several social media platforms, WhatsApp remains the most popular and consistently ahead of others. Consumers rely on it to receive messages from trusted sources day and night. Knowing these strengths, several businesses have chosen to approach their customers on their preferred platforms, strengthening customer relations and increasing customer satisfaction and revenue.

And telcos should do the same. Using WhatsApp Business, MNOs can engage with their subscribers in a personalised and interactive way, helping them understand subscriber behaviour and needs.

How will WhatsApp business help telcos streamline their customer experience?

WhatsApp Business’s strength lies in creating a conversational customer experience. So, telcos can host expressive chatbots and interact with opted-in customers more personally, nudging them through various stages of the subscriber journey.

So, instead of staffing call centres to resolve customer queries, which results in long wait times and customer dissatisfaction, MNOs, through WhatsApp Business, can allow customers to get in touch with them on the go and instantly. This will reduce the frustrating wait time, a common customer grievance, resulting in a smooth and seamless customer experience. Which will, in turn, help operators better serve customers, market to them and guarantee personalised after-sales support.

Apart from a smooth customer experience, WhatsApp Business also ensures privacy. Instead of resolving complaints on social platforms like Twitter and Facebook, network operators can resolve them in one-on-one conversations securely. With WhatsApp’s security perks, operators can share sensitive information like billing details, address changes and financial records.

Advantages of adopting WhatsApp Business for telcos

WhatsApp Business ensures increased customer satisfaction as operators can leverage its ease and comfort to interact with their customers. MNOs can use this platform apart from its other channels for marketing new offers, products and plans to existing and potential customers. This omnichannel approach can help improve customer retention rates and provide an opportunity to increase revenue.

You can easily integrate AI-driven chatbots on WhatsApp Business, helping you conduct a highly interactive and insightful conversation with your subscribers. These bots can fine-tune the conversation as per customer responses and past queries in real-time, helping reduce wait time drastically and efficiently improving the customer experience. Moreover, these bots are highly scalable and flexible. You can program every aspect of the bot, from look to responses. These bots can be scaled to service a growing customer base or a high volume of queries.

Deploying a large workforce for customer services in call centres and other infrastructure can incur a high cost with lower returns and average service. However, adopting WhatsApp Business gives you a higher return on investment and is more effective and easy to implement. While human interaction cannot be eliminated, it can be diverted to other fruitful business endeavours.

Chatbots on WhatsApp record important data about consumer behaviour like past queries, acceptance of new products, time spent chatting and customer responses to suggestions. MNOs can find ways to improve and personalise the customer experience using this data, leading to a more streamlined customer experience.

WhatsApp is fully GDPR compliant and offers end-to-end encryption guaranteeing security and an engaging user experience. Moreover, it can easily integrate with existing enterprise systems like CRM and ERP. So, MNOs can personalise every interaction done via the platform using past customer behaviour. Moreover, it can be integrated with other effective enterprise applications like billing and ticketing management.

The telecom industry has always been an early adopter of digital technology and applications. So, its struggle with the digitisation of customer experience is puzzling. However, with many operators taking the digital-first approach with WhatsApp Business, the industry is set to turn around its abysmal customer experience and revise the narrative. Hopefully, this will repair their damaged reputation and improve retention rates and secure revenue streams.

Dotgo can make this foray easier for operators. A global leader and expert in providing RCS and business solutions, Dotgo is an official WhatsApp Business Solution Partner. On teaming with us, you get access to a WhatsApp Business account and API, using which you can provide customer support, market your offerings and explore other opportunities. Additionally, we provide a directory where subscribers can find you independently and connect with you, generating market leads and revenues.

Moreover, you can leverage our expertise to build the WhatsApp chatbot experience. In all, Dotgo can be your one-stop shop for all your business messaging solutions. So, contact us to let us know how we can help you.