- it’s actually a big red flag
CSPs often work from the presumption that the fewer calls they receive from customers, the better. Fredrik Edwall explains why a lack of customer interaction is a significant problem for CSPs looking to build profitable 5G businesses.
CSPs have traditionally viewed customer support purely as an operational cost, believing their goal should be to minimize interactions to reduce costs. Silence is viewed as golden, because conversations cost money.
This mindset means CSPs are often oblivious to the extent of their 5G customer support problems. They believe their support services are performing well because that’s what their KPIs indicate. From their perspective – driven by their wish to reduce support costs - this might very well be true. But the question is whether it’s also true from the customer’s point of view.
Customers assume a frustrating support experience
In fact, customers usually have a vastly different perspective to support than their CSPs. They’re often painfully aware that their CSPs don’t want to interact with them, which immediately impacts the customer relationship, and they know that if they do need to call support, it’s likely to be a frustrating experience.
Just how big a problem this is was revealed by recent Subtonomy research which found that only 10% of customers say they’d contact customer support in the first 24 hours after they experienced a technical problem. Unfortunately, the true picture is even more disturbing.
In reality, as few as 1-3% of customers get the support they need - either because they give up when forced to queue, or because they don’t even bother to call due to previous bad experiences.
But surely if they’re not calling there isn’t a problem? In fact, it’s a huge problem that’s set to become even more acute with the rollout of more complex 5G services and due to rising customer expectations.
Three reasons why silence isn’t golden in Customer Support
When customers don’t interact with their CSPs the result is a range of negative outcomes.
Customers that don’t call are already disengaged and far more likely to churn.
CSPs are blindsided by these silent churners and don’t have chance to fix the situation before the relationship irretrievably breaks down. This means either they lose the customer unexpectedly and incur the cost of replacing them, or they’re forced to invest heavily in retaining them. Silencing customers is a false economy.
5G means that customers need more support, not less.
Unless they feel confident that CSPs will support their evolving needs they’re going to be less willing to try new products and offers, undermining the entire value of the 5G proposition and slowing time-to-revenue.
CSPs are losing out on valuable insight
that would help them understand customers better, improve their support, and provide valuable data to feed AI-driven automated support (such as bots).