Making Services Stick

According to Amdocs, the prepaid market continues to be one of the strongest growth engines in the communications, media and entertainment industry with yearly service revenues expected to reach over $380 billion by 2013. At the same time, the division between postpaid and prepaid services is blurring.

It appears that customers are responding very favorably to the level of personalization that prepaid plans offer, and now that device and service catalogs are more congruent, the customer experience in prepaid is creating deeper loyalty. CSPs must continue to expand their prepaid services offerings, and erase the notion that prepaid is a hangout for derelicts with credit problems, because it all boils down to giving customers the personalized services and billing options they want. "Service providers that can offer customers a broader choice of services will drive customers to use more services, increasing customer stickiness and spend," said Prudhomme. Perhaps once prepaid and postpaid B/OSS silos are merged, it will be easier to view payment method as just another customer choice, not another customer class. With all of the emphasis on customer experience as a differentiator, this element of personalization cannot be overlooked.