The research, conducted across a selection of global operators, revealed that almost 60% of respondents do not have access to the right data and associated tools to make a truly informed business decision. And that less than 25% of mobile operator respondents have marketing divisions that work with their network operations team to make business decisions on a daily basis.
Rajesh Sharma, VP Global Sales & Customer Operations at Astellia commented: “Quality of Experience (QoE) is a prime driver for mobile operators (O2, Tata, AT&T, Verizon US, MTN, Zain, Telefonica to name a small selection of respondents) and it is alarming that so many global operators do not feel readily equipped with the right data, tools or internal processes to make informed business decisions to the benefit of their customer’s QoE.
“Customer satisfaction is all important. In fact, it is the most important objective of the mobile operator according to the research. Weighting the responses numerically with 5 being the most important, customer satisfaction scored the highest rated average of 3.78; closely followed by retaining existing subscribers (3.74); and acquiring new subscribers and improving brand loyalty which both scored 3.7.
“With 45% of operators lacking sufficient access to data on QoE for voice, 42% for messaging and 45% for online browsing, (set to increase exponentially with 4G) this lack of data aptly highlights the disconnect between a customer’s actual experience, that perceived by their operators and the struggle they face in addressing the key priorities above.”
Nick Lane, chief analyst at mobilesquared added: “The world has gone Big Data mad, but the skill is in identifying what is the right data to make successful commercial decisions. The research reveals that mobile usage data (and third-party data) does not include the mobile user’s total mobile experience, so decisions are being made with less than 100% customer data.
“As no one is afraid of using data any more, completing the holistic view of the mobile customer with network data will take marketing to the next level.”
Network data is no longer the ally of just engineers. It allows marketers to make informed decisions based on an end-to-end transparent view of the network, handset and service usage. Using network data traditionally associated with identifying network failures and downtime has evolved and will continue to evolve over the coming years as mobile operators look to capitalise on the gold mine of the data at their disposal.