How Can Telcos Thrive in the 5G Era?

About 100 times faster than 4G, 5G is the next big opportunity for the telecom industry to create and capitalize on never-seen-before opportunities. 5G use cases, offering high-speed connectivity with low latency and greater bandwidth, can fast-track the development of futuristic technologies like connected e-health vehicles and traffic systems, and high-speed, uninterrupted cloud gaming. 

5G offers a gamut of opportunities to create a safer, resourceful, sustainable, and more intelligent society and gives operators the chance to be at the forefront of revolutionizing the world while generating several profitable avenues. The role 5G will play in the future is not lost on telcos. Projected to reach 3 billion subscribers worldwide by 2025, telcos across the world are vying to get the best out of this new tech. This has led to immense competition in the industry, forcing operators to find ways to stay competitive and thrive. 

Knowing the pulse of your customers and enterprise partners is the best way for you to stand out and be indispensable. And by leveraging 5G, you can not only elevate your customer experience but also transform from mere connectivity suppliers to strategic partners of enterprises, successfully thriving in a competitive market. 

Read on to know how you can leverage 5G to elevate the end-user experience, outperforming your competitors and roping in profits.

Interesting read: 4 Exciting Tech Trends that Will Shape the Telecom Industry in 2022

Capitalize on 5G to improve omnichannel customer service

The troubles of telecom customer service are no secret. It is often the primary reason subscribers shift from one operator to another, resulting in a higher churn rate. However, digitization and the growing importance of customer service have pressured telcos to switch from their traditional customer service avenues to an omnichannel approach. However, this is extremely difficult because telcos are traditional organizations with multiple legacy systems and a large user base.

However, by leveraging 5G’s internet speed and support to Rich Communication Services (RCS), telcos can offer a personalized, interactive, and engaging customer experience. With Rich Business Messaging (RBM), telcos can easily deploy chatbots that subscribers can use to contact them and resolve queries on the go. Furthermore, telcos can implement interactive marketing activities using RCS rich set features. What’s more, by extrapolating data from the deep analytics offered by RBM, telcos can provide a personalized and anticipatory solution to consumers, resulting in a seamless customer experience. 

Leverage 5G features to offer customized value-added services

With 5G’s virtualization and network slicing abilities, operators can offer a gamut of value-added services to enterprises and subscribers. For instance, operators can prioritize dedicated network connections for medical staff, resulting in faster and seamless long-distance treatment and remote operations in hard-to-reach, rural areas. 

Similarly, operators can deploy a dedicated network with high speed and low latency for gamers, enabling them to engage in seamless real-time, cloud-based gaming in a highly interactive virtual world. With the upward trend in the gaming industry, professional gamers are likely to shell out a significant fee as a premium for such top-class service. 

Extending the same logic, operators can dedicate another network layer to support video streaming, catering to a new user base of avid video content consumers. With 5G and its capabilities, operators can offer a plethora of customer-centric services, creating new revenue avenues in the process.

Host smart network applications, transforming from digital providers to strategic partners

5G will allow telcos to deepen and expand their service offerings to enterprises. Telcos can position 5G at the center of the digital transformation of businesses by offering tailor-made services and resources that will accelerate digitization and ultimately benefit end users. This helps telcos move from just being data providers to strategic partners playing a pivotal role in the digitization of enterprises.

Operators can offer networks bundled with various services explicitly catering to enterprises that need surplus bandwidth and high-speed internet. For instance, telcos can build an intranet-like virtual internet that is private and secure. It will allow enterprises to conduct their daily business without fearing a drop in internet speed, bandwidth, and security.

Furthermore, operators can offer specific services to enterprises to elevate their customer engagement and service efforts. Telcos can partner with developers to create cloud- and mobile-based applications that consumers can use to reach brands for quickly resolving localized issues or events on the go. 

Telcos can charge a premium for such readymade solutions, which most organizations will be happy to oblige for its convenience and enhancement of customer support. Moreover, partnering with the right developers will ensure that telcos need not worry about building such applications from scratch and just focus on improving their services in the best way possible.

Be RCS-ready to capitalize on Rich Business Messaging opportunities

RCS and 5G are intrinsically paired. With network slicing, operators can dedicate specific layers for RCS messaging while dedicating the rest to other use cases like IoT and edge computing. And RCS messaging, with its rich features, will offer users an interactive and personalized messaging experience, showcasing 5G’s bandwidth, low latency, and flexibility. So, it makes perfect sense for RCS to be promoted as the new messaging standard for 5G.

RCS messaging, especially RBM, can be an essential revenue source for operators. Subscribers are not keen on getting 5G subscriptions because of the cost. However, telcos can generate an ancillary revenue source by offering RBM services to enterprises constantly looking for ways to elevate customer engagement. However, to enjoy booming success, telcos must partner with expert industry leaders to help them build solutions for easy onboarding, verification, and deployment of RBM marketing campaigns. Partnering with such players will help telcos easily deploy RCS in their network and quickly monetize RBM.

Also read: Why Should Network Operators Adopt RCS?

With 5G, you are looking at an array of opportunities to be the torchbearers of futuristic technology. Embracing 5G technology will help you safeguard and enhance your current revenue streams and generate new ones. However, to make the best of 5G, you need to be ready to innovate and collaborate with the right partners. Only then will you be able to outshine your competitors in the oncoming digital era.