With the spread of the coronavirus around the world, consumer demands are changing for all industries. The telecommunications industry is no exception.
In times of crisis and uncertainty, customers expect self-service more than ever. They want omnichannel and instantaneous communication. In addition, theyThey also want fast, seamless data connections and immediate resolution of any network issues.
Pour répondre aux exigences des consommateurs et garder le contrôle de la situation, les opérateurs télécoms réorientent leurs stratégies commerciales. Nombre d’entre elles ont dû s’engager rapidement dans la voie de la transformation en fournisseurs de services numériques. Cela implique bien sûr un certain nombre de défis en matière d’opérations, d’architecture, de réseaux et de service à la clientèle également.
Let's take a look at the types of challenges that companies in the telecommunications industry face and learn how to overcome them.
5 major challenges in the telecommunications sector after the Covid-19 crisis
With many employees in quarantine and face-to-face support out of reach, many companies struggle to meet customer needs. It is important to provide immediate solutions and remote support.
Related article: Callbots in telecoms: Why do businesses need them?
Let's take a closer look at the top 5 challenges facing the telecom industry during the Covid-19 crisis:
1. The need for fast and personalized customer service
Most telecommunications service providers receive millions of customer requests every day. Now more than ever. With the ever-increasing number of requests and the inability to visit physical stores, many employees work from home. Providing fast and empathetic assistance becomes a problem.
In these times of crisis, immediacy, personalization and omnichannel communication are more important than ever. Ignoring these needs can lead to long wait times, annoying conversations with multiple managers to resolve the issue. Thus, automated responses are unsatisfactory.
All of these things can ruin a customer's relationship with your business. And an agitated customer is certainly not something you want. It's essential to be empathetic and provide instant solutions. On the other hand, this allows you to maintain a long-term relationship with your customers.
2. Complex business processes
With millions of subscribers and a variety of products and customized solutions, operational tasks have become increasingly complex. Face-to-face support is not an option. Even simple tasks such as service setup, billing, order fulfillment and payments are now difficult.
Managing complex operations requires more resources and tools. As a result, it increases the overhead costs of telecommunications companies.
En outre, les consommateurs veulent que tout soit très rapide. Ils ne sont pas prêts à tolérer le moindre retard dans les processus opérationnels, surtout s’ils sont confrontés à une pandémie et à une quarantaine mondiale. Il est temps d’être plus résolu que jamais.
3. Remote working
Avec le Covid-19 qui se répand rapidement dans le monde, garder des centaines d’employés à l’intérieur d’un centre de contact est à la fois une menace pour leur santé et, dans certains pays, même illégale. Les quarantaines sont appliquées et la plupart des entreprises se tournent vers le travail à distance.
The telecom industry relies heavily on huge contact centers to support its customers. In this environment, it's a huge challenge to keep up and provide support even with agents working from home. It's even more difficult if your team relies on complex, on-site technology.
The only solution is to rely on technology that is easy to use and can be managed from the cloud. This technology must also be easy to implement and able to be launched as soon as possible.
4. Network security
With the emergence of new technologies, ensuring network security has become another major challenge for telecommunications operators. They bring new threats to the security of networks and applications. All the more so as teams work remotely and customers ask for help from home.
This requires a number of operational and technical upgrades to meet customer expectations for system security. For telecommunicators in particular, measures such as reliable and secure authentication features need to be implemented.
5. Leveraging over-the-top players
La révolution des smartphones et l’essor considérables des applications de messagerie ont conduit à la naissance d’un certain nombre d’acteurs over-the-top (OTT). Par exemple, WhatsApp et Facebook Messenger. Ces applications ont redéfini les expériences des clients en matière de services de messagerie et d’appels vocaux et vidéo.
However, the rise in popularity of messaging applications is diverting traffic away from the offerings of most telecommunications companies. For years, these applications have been severely hurting the calling and messaging (SMS) revenues of telecom players. In fact, they have forced operators to remove roaming charges.
Although this has been a major struggle for telecommunicators until last month. The main challenge is to implement industry best practices as quickly as possible. The goal is to continue to provide the best customer service possible.
How do you overcome these challenges with callbots to grow your telecom business?
Companies must take action and redefine their strategies to adapt to this new context. They must do so as soon as possible.
The truth is that customers are at home and have multiple issues to deal with. Their Internet access, service configuration or mobile operator should not be added to these concerns.
Related article: The post-coronavirus customer experience: What will it look like?
Migrating phone and face-to-face support to digital channels is essential to keep it running.
Les callbots personnalisés vont devenir plus pertinents que jamais. Alors que les conversations téléphoniques d’assistance avec un agent humain sont souvent lentes et bureaucratiques. Notre callbot Locuta permet aux entreprises de développer des échanges immédiats avec leurs clients et individuels.
Here are some ways to overcome these customer service challenges and deal with the crisis.
1. Automate your customer service with callbots
Once you've established new touchpoints, you can easily automate simple conversations with customers using AI-powered callbots.
This will ensure that your customers don't have to wait in line for someone to answer their questions. Likewise, your customer service managers won't have to spend time solving repetitive problems.
2. Use live chats to address more complex issues
Once your team is no longer wasting time with repetitive and frequent questions, they will have more time to actually deal with complex problems that a callbot can't solve.
They can easily do this through a live chat from their home. No need to talk on the phone or send emails. This solution eliminates wait times and complicated internal processes.
3. Cloud technology
If your agents need to work from home, your team will need a software solution. It can be easily used and managed from anywhere.
Les solutions de bout en bout issues du cloud fournissent ce type de technologie. Elles permettent aux agents d’aider les clients par le biais d’un transfert d’appels vers leur poste. Ainsi, les agents peuvent voir l’historique de l’échange avec le callbot et ainsi résoudre le problème du client de manière directe et efficace.
In addition, these platforms also allow managers to check callbot performance and monitor conversations between conversational agents and customers. As a result, managers will be able to analyze metrics to continuously improve the service.
Ultimately, this type of technology will help telecom operators define a work-from-home strategy. This technology ensures the security and proper functioning of employees.
We are here to help you
To address the Covid-19 crisis, complementing technological advances with an effective strategy that puts the customer first will help your call center agents and all businesses thrive in this critical environment.
If you want to stay ahead of this global crisis, you need to take advantage of technologies such as artificial intelligence and automation. This can help you save time and deliver better customer experiences.
Do you need more information or do you need to act quickly? You can schedule a call with one of our experts. To learn more about how our Callbot solutions can help your business, contact us.
