I have had several reasons recently to think about the state of our connectivity. In the last month, my wife, my daughter and son have been on separate trips to three continents. They have kept connected, informed and entertained at a fraction of what I used to pay on international trips just a few years ago. In the last couple of years, I have interviewed nearly 750 executives across 50 countries for books and video episodes via Zoom and Teams. Pre-COVID, I would have hopped on planes to get this level of executive access. On a recent weekend, I watched my alma mater, TCU play on a Saturday evening in Austin, TX. I got up early the next morning to watch the Cricket World Cup in Melbourne, Australia, then a couple of hours later watched my NFL football team, the Bucs play the Seahawks in Munich, Germany.
It’s incredible how today’s telecoms and media companies have shrunk the world and democratized access to billions. As Hemingway famously said “it was gradually, then suddenly”. The industry has been turbocharged in the last few years.
Can you imagine if we got some similar payback and productivity from airlines or public utilities or healthcare? Yet, telcos do not get much customer love. They don’t rate very high in terms of brand reputation or customer satisfaction.
It was nice to hear David Fan, GM of the Salesforce Communications Cloud present on the dynamic industry in the Analyst Cam series here. Even more, I was pleased to see this short report (just 3 chapters) that David sponsored titled "Trends in the Communications Industry". It is the result of a survey of 500 industry experts and 6,000 consumers of wireless, cable and B2B telco services from around the globe.
The survey highlighted several trends and I have excerpted some key ones, many of which telcos need to monitor
The sector has become hypercompetitive, beyond just price
The survey reports
“When asked about what might make them consider switching internet service providers, respondents cite price and speed at the top. Unsurprisingly, with hybrid work models growing in popularity, reliability is also a big factor. In fact, more than 1 in 10 consumers say they'd consider changing internet providers for either better reliability (13%) or improved customer service (12%).”
and
“Fifty percent of wireless customers and 47% of cable customers believe they get the best service when they threaten to switch to a different provider. This indicates that more work needs to be done at addressing customer satisfaction throughout the lifecycle — not just when people threaten to leave.”
Hybrid customer experiences are still not optimized
“35% of those surveyed say they prefer to do business online and in stores. This means that optimization of physical experiences cannot be ignored. Customers want the best of both worlds. Providers need to plan for, and support, the joining of online and offline experiences. The ability to move from one channel to another is a key customer success factor.”
Customer satisfaction is driven by a handful of outcomes
While these expectations keep evolving, what keeps customers happy are actually pretty tactical. Here are some of their expectations of their cable providers.
Consumers are willing to pay more for wireless 5G, but have a fuzzy knowledge of what it does for them
The survey reports “only 44% of respondents were “very familiar” or “extremely familiar” with 5G technology. However, 67% of respondents said they would be willing to pay more for 5G.
5G could dramatically broaden telco ecosystems
Percentage of providers who think 5G would attract more partnerships and bundling options in the following areas
Developers could expand ecosystems even further
The report says
“Now that networks are being modernized and made accessible via APIs, the challenge becomes attracting developers who know how to build and connect applications with devices. Hyperscalers (companies, like AWS or Google Cloud, with the ability to scale computing resources on demand) have dedicated developer communities that could be great assets to traditional providers.”
B2B customers want collaborative and more digital experience
The survey showed
“B2B users report experiencing frustration when trying to manage accounts online (39%), make large purchases (36%), and request changes in service (36%). B2B users also reported frustration when using assisted digital services (31%) and self-service (34%) tools. Also concerning is that only half (53%) of procurement employees said they felt comfortable managing their enterprise accounts online without sales agent assistance.”
The report has plenty more interesting nuggets. Check it out and my Analyst Cam episode with David. It is a critical sector which is delivering very high value to us consumers and workers. Let’s engage more proactively with the sector while continuing to demand more from it.
The new telcos–same as the old ones
My wife booked the family on a Christmas cruise through the Caribbean. Brilliant suggestion. It’s tougher to get the aging kids to agree on a destination but there was no argument about this one. I was just a tad wary. The carrier, Carnival had a series of mishaps in the last couple of years. No problems on ours – in fact, everything was superb.
Except for the wi-fi. After the eighth session with download speeds under 1mb, I finally complained. At 75c a minute they should be doing much better especially as satellite connectivity (via Ka-band and other innovations) has improved each year. I offered the lady Speedtest.net images I had run during my mobile sessions. She said she needed to check their own monitor. Except after a few minutes she said it would not load: “the connectivity is very poor”. Duh! I told her to get back to me later. She forgot to. The next morning another agent helped and told me I “should not expect speeds you get at home”. Hello, I got better speeds on DSL a decade ago. She had a supervisor call who offered me 25 extra minutes. I told him I did not need more of the crappy service and we worked out a credit.
It made me contrast to the other experiences on the cruise. Don’t like an entrée? Want another appetizer? Want to swap “non-refundable” excursions? Want late check-out? No problem. But when it came to the telecom, over-priced poor service, and then excuses and bureaucracy.
Marriott has been my home away from home. They tell me I have stayed nearly 4 years with them! In the last few months, however, I have complained to several properties. Either the service is too slow or it requires repeated log ins. They treat it like gold – ok, their beach towels they used to inventory after every stay. One of their properties even settled a claim they illegally jammed customer hot spots. Seriously?
I have qualified for a Companion Pass on Southwest for 8 years running. It is their honor for very frequent fliers. Last year I sent the CEO a letter saying because of poor wifi (and couple of other reasons) I was moving 25% of my travel budget away from them. That allowed me to discover the much faster speeds on Jetblue, and much more reliable (albeit not as fast) GoGo service on Delta. In the meantime, the Row 44 service on Southwest has gotten even worse this year, so next year I plan to reduce my travel with Southwest even more.
Why are these respected brands offering such crappy connectivity? Do they have no leverage with their providers? Why do they feel the need to price what is a utility so obnoxiously?
Oh wait, these are cousins of our telcos and cable companies who consistently compete with tobacco companies for the worst brand reputations. It’s an unfortunate race to the bottom which nullifies so much else good these companies do in other facets of their products and services.
December 30, 2014 in Industry Commentary, Telecommunications | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)