Here it is at last - part 4 of our occasional series in which we show exactly how Swrve’s Intent Engine can be used to build sophisticated target audiences for campaigns on mobile and other emerging channels. This week we’ll be looking at telco - an industry that is of course central to the mobile revolution but that continues to have challenges when it comes to building personal relationships within emerging channels.

Whilst in one sense telco operators are about as close as you can get to their customers, in another they have struggled to retain relevance as anything other than an organization that bills occasionally and in an ideal world secures a further contract when an existing one expires. To do that, of course, these organizations first need to get the app (or AN app) onto the phone - hence the proliferation of rewards programs run by telco businesses. Beyond that the challenge is to communicate in a smart, relevant way that deepens that relationship and ultimately helps drive the metrics that matter in telco.

Swrve’s Intent Targeting Engine ensures that those campaigns are informed by the most comprehensive and up-to-the-second view of the customer imaginable. And not just the customer, but also the environment they are in at that moment in time and any relevant internal business data that might be relevant to the targeting of campaigns. That in turn means effective 1-2-1 marketing and a real difference to the business.

Here’s three use cases that should illustrate what I mean…

Example 1: Promoting New Handsets To Customers With Upcoming Renewal Dates

If there’s one thing that every telco business really hates, it’s churn. But how hard do most work to avoid it? In truth, not nearly hard enough. The current default strategy might best be described as “sit back and hope”: some customers will come looking for their upgrade and renewal, some will leave, and others might roll onto more lucrative (but risky) month to month contracts.

The Intent Engine, coupled with the type of native campaigns that can be delivered via Swrve, enables a different approach. Here’s a simple example of an audience that would in turn power a highly targeted renewal campaign delivered as an in-app interactive experience:

• We target users who have a renewal data at some time in the next 2 months. This is data shared from a central system of record, and we want to ensure contracts are up for renewal for obvious reasons
• We’ll also specify that the user is currently using an Apple handset, as this might indicate brand loyalty to that brand.
• Along the same lines, we then filter to ensure that an upgrade is available (we want to provide a carrot after all), but more specifically we specify that the upgrades available include the iPhone X. That way we can deliver customized content around that particular handset - that the user should be most likely to respond to.
• Next we can add in additional detail that can help further personalize the message. Let’s limit the message to users who are on a specific plan - in this instance the ‘Talk 50’ option.

When we put this information together we will be able to deliver in-app and rich media push campaigns that speak directly to the value delivered by a specific plan, and use a handset the user is most likely to be interested in to drive renewal. Much smarter than leaving everything to chance!

Example 2: Up-sell to Post Pay

In an ideal world most telco operators want their customers on post pay (or bill pay) contracts rather than pre-pay or pay-as-you-go. Retention rates are improved and revenue is more predictable. But migrating customers can be tricky. The Swrve Intent Engine allows operators to deliver carefully targeted campaigns informed by the customer’s own usage that can help ‘sell’ the post pay option effectively - and as a result improve upsell rates across the board.

Here’s what a simple Intent Engine query might look like in this instance:

• Integration with a central system of record can inform us as to the optimal post pay plan based on an individual's usage in the past months. This detail can be used to deliver the most effective campaign possible rather than a simple, generic ‘why not move to a contract?’ message.
• We can build in some frequency and recency analysis to identify users who regularly need to top up and thus might appreciate moving to contract for reasons of convenience. In this example, let’s say at least 6 times in the past 4 months.
• In the same way, let’s also include any users who had a balance of 0 more than 3 times in the past 6 months - which could indicate those customers who don’t get around to topping up - and are inconvenienced as a result.
• Combining all these elements will enable us to deliver an upsell campaign that proposes a specific alternative bill structure that saves the customer money and improves their experience of the service. An effective campaign that delivers a win/win all round.

Example 3: Feature Discovery

Our last example is probably our simplest: a campaign (delivered either within the app or via interactive push notification) helping users ‘find’ a specific feature within the telco app - in this case the ability to purchase a data plan when travelling abroad. It can involve significant investment to create and manage product like this, and take up is often disappointing, leading to poor return on investment. These campaigns can help.

It’s a simple two step query. Firstly, we identify users who have never used the feature. That sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many businesses deliver campaigns relating to features that customers are already using. Second, we’ll create a recency and frequency criteria to find customers who have incurred roaming charges at least 3 times in the past 12 months, and add a further criteria that the total charges incurred are more than $10.

That straightforward query gives us a list of customers perfect for informing about our data plan for travellers - saving them money in the future, and ensuring our product gets used to the full!