Consumer Journey Mapping for Telecommunications Companies

 
Communication service providers (CSPs) are focusing on the telecom consumer journey—for good reasons. Telecom lags behind other industries in customer satisfaction, with both internet service and subscription TV service at the bottom of the rankings by industry.

Customer experience (CX) is essential to prevent customer churn—which is particularly high in telco. According to the 2022 State of Customer Churn in Telecom report, customer loyalty to telecom providers is down 22% post-pandemic due to poor CX. According to Forrester, even a small improvement in a brand’s customer experience quality can increase wallet share and reduce customer churn, creating millions in new revenue.

Until the past decade, other growth objectives, such as monetization, have hindered many CSPs’ investment into improving CX. Today, spurred by greater customer expectations and competition, CSPs are prioritizing CX—and that means paying more attention to customer journeys.

Enter: consumer journey mapping, which is critical for CX improvement. Like a road map helps travelers reach their destination, telecommunications consumer journey mapping helps telcos achieve their goals, such as better meeting consumer expectations, connecting with customers and boosting loyalty and customer lifetime value.

Common Challenges in Telecom

Intense competition. With several large wireless providers in the U.S., and even more mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), customers have more choice than ever. Newly integrated 5G networks provide excellent coverage and speed in all markets, making it harder for telco operators to stand out from competitors. Because of this shift, CX has become the primary competitive differentiator.

Competition drives the need for deeper engagement with customers. Customers expect the ability to interact with their wireless, internet or cable provider through quick, easy and convenient channels. In fact, they’re expecting service as seamless as it is with digital native disruptors such as Netflix or Amazon. Telecom or cable operators that don’t meet consumer expectations are at risk of losing business.

Limited, holistic view of customer needs and expectations. Telecom providers have vast amounts of customer data stored about their customers, including how customers use their services (i.e., usage data), their interactions with the company and their billing details. Many CSPs find it challenging to analyze this data to gain insight into customer behavior, preferences and expectations. Without this knowledge, it’s difficult to meet customer expectations and needs.

Slow digital transformation. According to a Statista survey, 70% of U.S. consumers expect to receive a customer service response the same day they submit one. Digital self-service is an effective strategy companies can offer to provide this information quickly. Yet mobile network operators lag behind other industries in digital transformation and are at risk of losing customers because of it. According to the 2022 State of Customer Loyalty and Churn in Telecom report, 17% of telco customers who churned did so because of a lack of self-service options.

Increasing infrastructure and operating expenses. CSPs must invest heavily in the costly infrastructure required to serve their customers. According to PwC, as the transition to 5G continues and newer technological standards gain traction, telcos are projected to invest $342.1 billion in their networks in 2027. Consequently, operators feel pressure to improve operational efficiency, boost monetization and control costs. High call center volumes, growing expenditures for technology/system maintenance and processing, and rising energy prices make cost control challenging.   

By mapping telecom consumer journeys, CSPs can take steps to overcome these challenges.

What Is a Consumer Journey?

A consumer journey is a series of interactions that a customer has with a brand for any particular task (job to be done) or decision. The customer decides what actions to take at each step in the process, while the business has an opportunity to guide those decisions and behaviors toward the desired outcome. Customer journeys occur during all six stages of the CX lifecycle:

• Discover (research devices, bundles and offers)
• Buy (purchase devices and bundles)
• Onboard (receive purchased products, activate services)
• Use and manage (change communication preferences, receive notification of exceeding allowance)
• Support (pay bills, schedule service appointments, receive proactive outage notifications)
• Grow (receive targeted offers, renew and upgrade contract)

What Is Consumer Journey Mapping?

Consumer journey mapping means creating a visual representation of every action a prospect or customer takes when interacting with your business to accomplish a task. For example, a customer who wants to pay a bill may try to log in to the payment portal, reset the password when they can’t remember it, view the bill online, call customer service to ask why this month’s bill is higher than usual, and finally pay the bill.

Outlining the journey steps helps your team understand what customers may experience and what they want and need. A telecom consumer journey map reveals common friction points and bottlenecks that need to be addressed. For example, if many customers call with questions about their bill, you may decide to implement a self-service digital bill explanation tool to reduce bill confusion and costly contact center calls.

The Benefits of Consumer Journey Mapping

Great customer experiences are easy, effective (i.e., produce the desired result) and lead to positive emotions. Telecom companies should use consumer journey mapping to improve interactions at every stage of the CX lifecycle. Consumer journey mapping helps you accomplish many things, including:

Better understand and empathize with customers. When you put yourself in your customers’ shoes and know how they interact with your brand, you can anticipate communication gaps, friction/pain points and where they will drop off. This knowledge guides improvement efforts to better meet consumer expectations. For example, preemptively notifying customers of planned maintenance that may impact their wireless service prevents the stress and frustration that would occur if the customer discovered the lack of coverage five minutes before a client call.

Identify unmet needs. Having a comprehensive grasp of customer needs across various interactions enables you to spot gaps in the journey, eliminating the need for guesswork. This knowledge allows you to introduce additional touchpoints or enhance existing ones. For example, contacting customers before their contract expires—and offering them a tailored plan/bundle based on their usage history—prevents them from having to spend hours researching your competitors’ offerings.

Pinpoint friction points. By mapping how customers navigate your website or app, you can anticipate places where customers try to engage but can’t, or where it takes too much effort to complete an action. For example, if many customers reset their password for the payment portal (because they can’t remember it), you can use a digital bill explainer tool that links to the payment portal without requiring login.

Visualize emotions, not just actions. Telecommunications consumer journeys frequently involve emotions, yet translating these feelings into measurable data is challenging. A meticulously researched customer journey map depicts customers’ emotions (such as frustration, anger or stress) as well as their thoughts and actions. This visualization is crucial for grasping their fundamental needs and enhancing service delivery to reduce negative emotions.

According to Forrester, emotion is a key driver for delivering high levels of CX performance. In 2023, elite brands delivered customer experiences that evoked an average of 29 positive emotions—including feeling happy, valued and appreciated—for each negative emotion. By gaining insights into customer emotions through journey mapping and taking steps to foster positive emotions, you can enhance CX.

5 Steps to Create a Consumer Journey Map

1. Establish clear objectives.

Decide what you want to accomplish. Where is your company’s CX falling short? If customers are dissatisfied with your contact center because their problems are not getting resolved in one call, one objective would be to increase first call resolution by implementing a telco-specific agent desktop solution.
 

2. Create customer personas.

Describe fictitious customers who represent the demographics (age, income or occupation), psychographics (personality, lifestyle or attitudes) and behavioral characteristics (usage patterns, preferences for services or loyalty) of your average customer. Keep these personas in mind as you map telecom consumer journeys. What emotions and friction points are these personas likely to experience as they interact with your brand? What can you do to make their interactions more convenient and forgettable (in a good way)?
 

3. Identify consumer touchpoints.

Telecom customers engage with your organization through various touch points, such as online searches, email campaigns, social media and mobile app interactions, in-store visits, phone calls and chatbot conversations. After identifying these touchpoints, consider their impact on customers. Who do they contact for assistance? How easily can they schedule a service appointment? Is the payment method? The answers to these questions should guide your CX improvement efforts.
 

4. Outline the key customer journey steps.

Identify the sequence of actions that customers take during a particular journey. For example, someone who is approaching the end of their internet contract may research plans from your brand and your competitors. To do that, they may visit websites and social media sites and read reviews. If they choose a competitor’s plan, they’ll cancel their account. Customer journey analytics tracks customers’ interactions with your brand, helping you understand what is happening and predict the intent of those actions. Recognizing that consumers are comparing plans allows you to proactively contact them (using customer journey management software) and offer a tailored plan based on their usage history and preferences.
 

5. Use a premade template.

Instead of spending hours mapping telecommunications customer journeys, take advantage of pre-templated journeys. CSG Xponent Ignite, our award-winning customer engagement solution, includes telecom-specific pre-templated journeys that allow customers to:

• Receive and pay bills.
• Proactively learn of service outages.
• Schedule service appointments.
• Receive notifications they’re exceeding an allowance.
• Renew and upgrade their contract (promo rolloff).

Bring Telecom Customer Journey Mapping to Life with CSG Xponent Ignite

Telecommunications consumer journey mapping helps you understand and meet customer needs and expectations, eliminating friction points and enhancing CX. Xponent Ignite makes it easy to get started with customer journey management and achieve quick wins.

The foundation of Xponent Ignite is CSG Xponent, our industry-leading customer journey management solution that combines customer journey analytics, digital communication and decisioning to guide customers to the next best action. Our team will help you build a business case, identify the high-value journeys to start with (based on expected return on investment), and launch easily using pre-templated customer journeys.