What’s In and What’s Out for CSPs: Trends Shaping 2024 and Beyond

The game is changing for communications service providers (CSPs)—they’re reinventing themselves as “techcos.” Specifically, they’re shedding their legacy as simple connectivity providers and emerging as architects of comprehensive digital experiences.

Forget just selling services—CSPs are now crafting the future of how we live, work and play. Imagine seamless entertainment, intelligently automated homes and hyper-personalized mobile experiences. This is the world techcos are building.

That’s a promising future, but to get there, CSPs have obstacles to overcome. One is their legacy infrastructure and culture. CSPs have traditionally relied on costly and complex hardware systems that are difficult to upgrade and integrate with new technologies. Another is their competition. CSPs have to stand out from the over-the-top (OTT) players, such as Netflix, Google, and Amazon, who offer attractive and low-cost digital services to consumers.

What this means: The old rulebook no longer applies. To thrive, CSPs need to embrace winning strategies and shed outdated practices. We’ll explore what’s “in” and what’s not for CSPs in 2024 and beyond.

What’s In: AI Elevating Customer Experience

AI is no longer just about streamlining back-office tasks. It’s a game-changer for CSPs looking to elevate customer experience (CX) in two key ways:

Hyper-Personalization: AI analyzes a wealth of data, including customer preferences, usage patterns and past interactions. This allows CSPs to recommend products and services that are truly tailored to individual needs. Generative AI (GenAI) takes it a step further. GenAI surpasses basic chatbots by understanding customer concerns and delivering more helpful interactions through virtual assistants that can have natural conversations.

Predictive Power: AI empowers CSPs to anticipate customer needs, especially for businesses. Imagine proactively adjusting services before capacity becomes an issue, or suggesting valuable offerings like bundled Office365 subscriptions or security solutions—all based on predicted needs. This proactive approach reduces frustration and builds loyalty.

What’s In: Unbundling and Rebundling

Gone are the days of the one-size-fits-all bundle. Today’s customers crave flexibility, and CSPs are responding with a two-pronged approach: unbundling and rebundling.

Unbundling: Freedom to Choose What Matters: Since customers don’t want to be forced to pay for services they don’t use, innovative providers are offering a la carte options. These include flexible packages where customers build their own bundle, selecting only the services they truly value. This newfound freedom aligns perfectly with a recent survey revealing that 71% of North American cable and internet providers recognize the need for tailored offerings.

Rebundling: Win-Win Partnerships: Rebundling isn’t about going back to the old ways. Instead, CSPs are partnering with streaming services to create new, attractive bundles. These bundles combine traditional triple-play services (phone, internet, TV) with on-demand video streaming, catering to a broader customer base who enjoy both options.

What’s Out: A One-Size-Fits-All Experience

One universal plan doesn’t satisfy everyone. Customers expect personalized experiences, and CSPs are paying attention. A survey of 121 global telco CX leaders found that 41% of respondents saw an increased demand from customers for more personalization.

Beyond Usage Patterns: Unlocking the ‘Why’

Exceptional personalization goes beyond simply analyzing past behavior (usage patterns). To truly understand your customers, CSPs need to delve deeper. Here’s where customer data and AI come into play.

AI can move beyond static data and engage with customers on an individual level. Imagine AI-powered interactions that uncover the “why” behind customer behavior:

• Life Changes: Has a recent life event impacted their data needs?
• Specific Activity Needs: Do they require more data for hobbies like gaming or streaming?
• Service Priorities: What services are most important to them (phone, internet, etc.)?
• Budgetary Constraints: What is their comfort level with telecom service costs?

AI-Powered Personalization: Tailored Solutions, Happier Customers

By leveraging these insights, AI can propose truly personalized plans:

• Data-Heavy Family Plan: Cater to a family with a young gamer who requires significant data.
• Travel Data Package: Offer a travel-friendly data plan for a frequent flyer.
• Scalable Internet Plans: Provide a growing business with options to increase internet capacity as needed.

This personalized approach fosters customer satisfaction and loyalty, setting CSPs apart from one-size-fits-all competitors.

What’s Out: Fragmented Data

Telecom networks generate a goldmine of data, but it’s often trapped in isolated silos. This hinders network performance analysis and personalized customer experiences. Customer usage data, such as buying habits and viewing preferences, resides in separate systems, preventing the effective use of recommendation engines and predictive analytics.

By adopting a unified data platform, CSPs can unlock the true potential of their data.

• Personalized Experiences: Data from a unified profile (such as who you’re watching with) would allow a streaming service to recommend appropriate shows (e.g., family-friendly versus “date night” shows). GenAI chatbots could ask contextual questions (what mood are you in?) to further tailor the recommendations.
• Proactive Support: A unified system could detect unusual data usage spikes, like increased roaming or streaming activity, and proactively notify customers of higher charges with explanations through personalized bill summaries.
• Fast Problem Resolution: Traditionally, pinpointing the blame for network issues like dropped calls or slow internet speeds is a slow process. A unified data platform provides real-time, centralized data that can help quickly identify the source of the problem, expediting the resolution process.

Are You Ready to Reboot Your Playbook for 2024?

These are just a few of the ways CSPs need to update their strategies and continue up the path to techco status. To act on these strategies, however, CSPs will need to embrace SaaS. That’s the key, according to key, as CSG SVP of Product Management Sean Casey said in an interview with AWS:

“Move now, move quickly [on Saas], because the benefits are going to be there. …If you look at it, that’s why technology companies have grown so fast, because they’re embracing those types of concepts. That’s allowing them to move fast and break stuff. On the telco side, [it has been] very slow to do that. If you start to embrace cloud and SaaS, you can operate more like a technology company.”