Wireless carriers are exploring a wide range of opportunities for using big data to increase revenue, identify customers that may be at risk of defecting, and other purposes.
And wireless carriers are also beginning to make use of real-time data to present subscribers with new product offers on the fly, as RCR Wireless News reporter Roberta Prescott notes in a recent video roundtable discussion.
By using big data analytics and customer data, wireless carriers can determine customer usage patterns (e.g., those customers who are heavy users of text messaging, mobile Internet, etc.) and then develop appropriate offers that align with those usage patterns.
Udi Ziv, CEO of Pontis, offers a tangible example in a column for Mobile Marketer.
Let’s say a subscriber is paying $22 per month for a package that includes 300 text messages. By analyzing the subscriber’s usage patterns, a wireless carrier can detect that the customer approaches the 300-text threshold but then stops short during the last days of each month to avoid paying a penalty for exceeding his limit.
By identifying these patterns, the carrier can offer the subscriber additional low-priced text messaging options toward the end of each month.
Another way that wireless carriers can provide customers with real-time offers is when they are traveling overseas and are subject to roaming fees.
“Transient roamers” or international travelers who use paid Wi-Fi or local SIM cards as alternatives to traditional mobile roaming spent an estimated $17 billion on these connectivity methods in 2012, according to a recent column for RCR Wireless.
Wireless carriers can act on these opportunities by identifying when their subscribers have arrived in foreign countries and offer them tailored packages for fixed prices to encourage subscribers to use their mobile devices as if they were in their home countries.
Of course, there are still hurdles that wireless carriers must overcome to better leverage customer usage data to provide subscribers with relevant, real-time messaging and offers.
There are still latency issues as to how quickly actions can be taken from data that’s gathered and then delivered or presented as offers to wireless customers, Chris Checco of Razorsight notes in the RCR Wireless News video roundtable.
Wireless carriers are still in the early stages of adopting real-time analytics. One effective way for carriers to gain experience in this area is by testing out the use of real-time offers to customers to gauge their interest in different types of services and to iron out any technical or logistical challenges before extending these capabilities to a wider audience.
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