Expectations on levels of service continue to increase, and telcos need to be constantly innovating to meet those demands in order to grow customer loyalty. We’ll look at some of the innovation in the digital CX toolbox – from self-service options and AR to data security/privacy and agentic AI. This meeting brings together experts, startups, telcos, and investors who are working on "delighting the customer" for both B2C and B2B.
Silicon Valley, California, February 5, 2025/Meeting Recap/ Telecom Council's Customer Experience (CX) in the telecommunications industry meeting, focused on a critical area impacting customer retention and revenue growth. An Accenture study highlighted the scale of this issue, finding that 80% of customers who switched telecom providers did so due to poor customer experience. This underscores the significant financial implications of CX and its direct correlation with customer churn.
The meeting highlighted that this is not just about adopting new solutions, but also about fundamentally rethinking how CX is approached. For instance, the shift towards hyper-personalization, as emphasized in a 2023 KPMG study, shows that customers are more likely to remain loyal to providers who offer tailored plans and proactive customer service, as personalization drives customer lifetime value.
As usual, our meeting began with high-level contributions from analysts, experts, and authors to help explain the state of the art. Egidijus Pilypas (Director of Product and Marketing & Co-founder, Exacaster) provided a market overview, setting the stage for discussions by re-framing CX as Customer Value Management. CVM considers not only solving problems, but also how to touch the potential incremental revenue from existing customers.
Egidijus Pilypas's presentation included the painful reality that the only way to grow customers is to poach from another carrier, and that a customer only leaves their carrier because of a bad experience [Derek: although, I do suspect a significantly cheaper competitor can also drive churn.] So to grow revenue, according to Pilypas, carriers need to be able to communicate 1:1 with customers to make appropriate offers, and leverage the older tactic of bundling services, because bundling demonstrably reduces churn by increasing the changeover costs. You can read more of Egidijus’ analysis in the http://cvmtrends.com report and his book, CVMBoK, which launches at MWC Barcelona this March.
Next on the stage, Krishna Raj Raja (CEO & Founder, SupportLogic), shared insights from his many years of experience in support and CX. Leading companies, Krishna says, are not just hearing the voice of the customer, but amplifying it using AI and smart automation, while empowering the human CSR to deliver the kind of personalized services that simply weren’t possible before. AI is able to hold ALL prior interactions with that customer in the AI’s “short-term memory” – avoiding one of customer's biggest gripes: the “I already told the last CSR this!!”
Krishna, who literally wrote the book on the support experience (called "Support Experience"!) thinks that Customer Support should be a revenue center, not a cost. He suggested using AI not for text generation, but rather for signal extraction from unstructured data, which is actually the underwater portion of the iceberg, or about 95%. Krishna closed with Maya Angelou “People don't remember what you did. They remember how you made them feel.”
Our meeting offered our usual coterie of great startups, with sweeping range of new solutions for the CX space. The scale-ups & startups addressed topics such as:
These presentations were well-received, highlighting the innovative approaches being developed to tackle CX challenges. Thanks to our volunteer question panel, Gabriel Ionita (Director, Group Partnering and Business Development, Deutsche Telekom) and Lisa Schwab (Director of Strategic Growth Engagement, CableLabs), who led Q&A after each pitch.
Last time we had a CX meeting was three years ago, and it’s clear that AI has become a dominant theme since that last session. But we learned that there are many different ways to implement AI tech. AI can be deployed in various manners, and not all should be expected to have equal success. Our meeting drove home the pivotal role of CX in the telecom industry, not just as a means of reducing churn but as a strategic lever for growth and customer loyalty. The insights shared by industry experts and the startups offered a glimpse into the future of CX, where technology and a customer-centric approach converge to create meaningful and valuable customer interactions. The Telecom Council's meeting successfully facilitated crucial dialogues and partnerships to drive this evolution forward.
The Telecom Council extends its gratitude to the hosts, CableLabs, for their hospitality and support. All presentations from the meeting will be available in the Telecom Council's Member Library.