Market research indicates that telecommunications customers overwhelmingly prefer personalized offerings and will pay more for customized service, while research from Strategy Analytics reveals the following:

• in the US 60 percent of smartphone owners would prefer to customize their mobile-service plans instead of having a set list of plans from which to choose;

• in the UK 56 percent of smartphone owners would prefer customized plans;

• in China 72 percent of smartphone owners prefer customization over set plans.

As you can see in figure 1 below, even smartphone customers on unlimited plans are interested in customized ones.

Figure 1

The obvious billion-dollar question is: will customers pay more for customized service packages? According to Signals Research Group, the answer is yes. In its February report “Mobile Broadband Pricing and Bundling: The Voice of the Consumer,” the telecom consultancy demonstrates that customers are willing to pay for a greater degree of personalization across services. As you can see in figure 2 below, there are numerous services that offer revenue opportunities to the agile operator.

Figure 2: Willingness to pay for services and service bundles, based on aggregate responses (Source: Signals Research Group, February 2013)

Strategies

Personalization used to mean custom ringtones, home screens and wallpapers, but today it’s an end-to-end, top-to-bottom affair. In its most recent research report on CEM, Oracle urged CSPs to “differentiate themselves across all channels, touch points, and interactions to not only engage customers but to also retain them in loyal, long-term relationships.”

Presales: Figuring out how to attract new customers is an ever-changing calculus, but connecting with them on their level is always a good bet. Presenting prospects with relevant offers based on preferences and segments (instead of randomly generated advertising) is key. SundaySky, the vendor for AT&T’s popular video bills, helps CSPs personalize the presales experience by leveraging an automated advertising system in conjunction with cookies to serve personalized video ads to customers who browse away from a carrier’s website and onto YouTube or another video-hosting site. User interface is crucial at this point in determining how customers select their services. Customizable package interfaces in tandem with comparison functionality have proven successful for C Spire Wireless, but there is ample room for improvement in this area across all industries.