$47 billion global mobile operator revenue boost untapped - report

Mobile operators could boost annual global data revenues by $47 billion through brushing up their upsell strategies, according to a report by BSS solution provider Openet. The report suggests telcos should have a system in place which, by taking into account the customer context, automatically triggers the most relevant offer to be sent to the customer device, allowing the immediate purchase and activation of the product.

According to the report, which surveyed 87 operators, the context can be based on subscriber activity, usage, application accessed, location or profile. Passengers at airports could for example be targeted with roaming package offers, or a user streaming a film from an OTT service provider could be offered a high-speed boost offer.

“In this competitive market, the ability to unlock new revenues, build customer loyalty and increase profitability are the key goals for mobile operators around the world,” Openet Senior Marketing Manager, Corine Suscens said. “This survey assessed the revenue impact of real-time contextual offers that customers can purchase and activate on their device.”

77% of the survey respondents said potential revenue is wasted through slow time-to-market for new offers, while 74% said they believe this problem could be solved by having one central solution to create, manage and update offers. Although 89.5% said enabling real-time, contextual offers to be sent, purchased and activated on the customer device is important, two-thirds said they don’t have the capability to do this. However, conveniently, Openet is about to launch a solution that apparently does just that.

“The results of our survey show a clear desire from operators to have the flexibility and agility to offer contextually relevant offers to subscribers to increase upsell opportunities,” Openet GVP Sales and Services, Philip Hogan said . “That’s precisely what we now offer thanks to the availability of our RTOM (Real-time Offer Management) solution. We’ve already secured two major orders for RTOM, which shows that there is a clear demand for this solution.”

“This survey revealed that mobile operators expect to increase upsell opportunities, uptake rates and profit margins if they could trigger offers based on the real-time customer context that customers can purchase and activate on their device,” Suscens added. “This approach can transform the relationship between operators and customers, with operators being able to pro-actively respond to the customer needs in real time.”