Telcos are getting pretty good an impersonal communications

They might be slowly headed in the right direction, but telcos are still not great at relating to customers.

In the pursuit of relevance in the digital economy, personalised experiences are a hot topic, but the telcos are no-where near as good on the delivery front as the internet giants. There are of course many reasons for this, but one of the most apparent is the structure of the organization according to Intent HQ CEO Jonathan Lakin.

Here is the current state of affairs. The telcos have access to the same technology, a tsunami of information on the customer and (in theory) access to the same talent pool as the internet giants. The ingredients for success are on both the telco and OTT work surfaces, suggesting the organization itself is to blame.

The FANG companies are incredibly well-known for personalising experiences for customers. Not only does this create more opportunity to drive revenues, placing the right product in front of the right person at the right time, it creates a tie to the customer. The customer feels heard and has a stronger emotional connection to the brand, ultimately reducing churn. Both are benefits which would be of interest to telcos.

But the issue is structural. Telcos are organized in siloes, each of which is excellent at building an in-depth, narrow image of the customer. Whether it is insight on customer churn, or interaction and product history, the telco can build knowledge of the customer but without combining all of these images personalisation will never be a reality.

A good example is product offerings to customers, and a bugbear of many around the world. Whether it is offering products who have already been purchased, or even ones which might be out of the customers price range, without combining the siloes and making more use of the swathes of information available, personalised messaging will not be achievable.

The other issue for the telcos is that of priorities. Lakin pointed out that the main priority for telcos is profitability, which influences how products are developed and sold, and in turn evolving communication strategies and platforms. This not only creates a nightmare for integration in the IT department, but reinforces the siloes. The customer is sitting down the priority list, which is not going to aid the push towards personalised messaging.

Right now, the structure in not in place to create a personalised messaging culture. The ingredients are all there to create a sumptuous recipe, but the organizations are set up right.