How telecom brand analysts can turn data overload into churn-reducing insights

The world of business is changing, with nearly every facet of every industry adopting powerful new technologies. 

Telecommunications companies face even more challenges than most other sectors. Yet, even with all of those challenges, opportunities to reduce churn, build trust and loyalty and increase adoption rates still exist for the industry. 

The highlights: 

• Telecom faces big, shifting challenges

• Telcos have lots of data, but it’s tough to access and offers little clarity

• Strategies to stand out include making the most of IT and building trust and loyalty among consumers

• Tools to gain consumer insights can help

Quick hits: 

• Telcos have vast network, billing and customer data—but it’s siloed

• Analysts struggle to turn raw data into actionable predictions

• Slow research cycles leave launches vulnerable to competitive moves

If you’ve ever had the experience of being on vacation and your credit card gets locked, you know a little bit about the situation for most telco companies right now. They have plenty of a needed resource—customer data—but can’t access it. In order to gain the insights inherent in their vast networks and billing and customer data, telcos need to streamline their data so it can be mined and those crucial insights uncovered. Without the right partners and tools, that can be a painfully slow process, and succeeding in the competitive telco market does not allow for slow research cycles. 

AI can pave the way to those insights, but “AI is only as powerful as the data it has to work with,” according to Dag Peak, chief product officer at Alianza. “Fortunately, telco has a lot of data at its disposal—from network performance metrics to product usage statistics and aggregated customer data, service providers are sitting on a goldmine of information.”

Brand analysts are tasked with turning raw data into actionable predictions, but the data alone isn’t enough. Today, a deep understanding of customers and why they make the choices they do is as important as having historical data when it comes to predictions. 

Quick hits: 

• High infrastructure and marketing spend make every failed launch expensive

• A poorly priced or positioned bundle can accelerate churn

• Misaligned messaging damages trust in an already commoditized market

The challenges facing telcos seem to keep multiplying. Infrastructure is both expensive and necessary. Customer loyalty is low, and trust is fractured. Regulations are complex and proliferating. Macroeconomic growth seems to be slowing everywhere and many people see telecom services as a luxury that can be cut if it comes to it. 

One additional danger is commoditization. When a service or product becomes a commodity, there’s little competition on price, and almost no differentiation. Consider the difference between the options consumers have when it comes to choosing a restaurant and those it has when it comes to buying potatoes. 

The more commoditized telecom becomes, the less pricing power and opportunity for differentiation telcos have. PwC published some research that demonstrates the difference in differentiation and commoditization among telcos in 2019 and 2024. As seen in the charts below, average revenue per user (APRU) is shown on the left axis and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), a common measure used to determine market competitiveness, is shown across the bottom. The lower the APRU, the less the impact of price, and the higher the HHI, the more commoditized the industry.

Although the challenges facing the telecom industry are many, operators can still leverage opportunities. Focusing on IT, particularly lowering the IT cost-efficiency ratio, taking a holistic approach to IT and business, collaboration across departments and choosing cloud native development rather than a lift and shift strategy can all help telcos gain a competitive foothold. 

Lowering churn and de-risking new offers are also necessary components for telcos to improve their position in the market. McKinsey details these and strategies the top telcos are using successfully in an article titled Transforming telecom tech: How IT excellence drives innovation and cost efficiency.

Quick hits: 

• Early testing of new offers, bundles or features prevents costly mistakes

• Scenario testing on pricing elasticity, adoption likelihood and churn impact

• Real-time consumer sentiment insights to validate position

Along with a carefully planned IT strategy, telcos can benefit from savvy brand analysts using the tools available to de-risk decision-making to the fullest extent possible. 

In an industry where consumer trust levels are very low, understanding how customers feel in real-time is essential. Combining early testing of new offers, bundles or features and scenario testing can help brand analysts understand the potential adoption likelihood and churn impact. 

Zappi can help brand analysts combine past research and current consumer insights so that their offers stand out even in an over-saturated market. By accessing the vast amounts of data they possess, operators can create consumer-centric systems and begin to build and grow trust with customers. 

Early testing means identifying the offers and bundles that appeal to customers quickly, which in turn means getting more feedback and sharpening the offer. The iteration loop leads to an agile system that allows you to hone in on what consumers want, today. 

Quick hits: 

• Quantitative adoption forecasts and ROI projections

• Qualitative feedback on service perceptions, frustration, loyalty drivers

• AI-driven theming of verbatims to reveal root causes of churn or adoption hesitation

Knowing what people do—switching providers, downgrading plans, choosing specific bundles, etc.—is important and useful. Understanding why they do those things—saving money, frustration, a better deal from a competitor, etc.—provides context for those decisions. A mix of the two, quantitative data and qualitative data, shows brand analysts both what happened, and crucially, why. 

With clear, easy-to-understand adoption forecasts and ROI projections informed by consumer perceptions of service and their frustrations, brand analysts have the ingredients for a winning campaign in their hands. When those ingredients are combined, brand analysts can see both why people leave and why they stay. 

Case study: Vodafone Smart Tech

For example, Vodafone introduced Neo, a smartwatch designed for kids, and needed to raise awareness and generate media coverage before launching. It was essential for the Vodafone Smart Tech team to understand consumer perceptions in order to sharpen message clarity as well as having the quantitative data around consumer attention and retention. Zappi delivered exactly what the team needed with qualitative verbatims, which are autocoded direct quotes from consumers and quantified the volume of mentions. From this research, the Vodafone Smart Tech team knew exactly how people felt about their concept and messaging. The result? Improved engagement and retention rates, a built up category-brand association, and struck an emotional chord with parents. Read more about the success of the Vodafone Smart Tech campaign

Quick hits: 

• Metrics that matter: Churn reduction, ARPU growth, adoption likelihood, customer lifetime value

• Learning loops feed back into future launches and retention campaigns

• Analysts move from reporting churn to actively preventing it with predictive insight 

With a trove of data such as telcos possess, the trackable metrics are nearly unlimited, so choosing the ones that matter is mission critical. 

In telecom, those are typically churn reduction, ARPU growth, customer lifetime value and the likelihood of adoption. With each new offer, bundle or pricing structure, telcos need solid, reliable predictions as well as an ongoing awareness of customer sentiment. 

Zappi’s agile consumer insights system creates a learning loop that allows for a real-time, connected consumer-centric  insights that enable telcos to innovate quickly and gain more knowledge with each iteration. 

Along with the right metrics, the second critical element of successful launches is speed. Brand analysts can’t wait months on consumer insights. Innovating and adapting quickly is the key and Zappi’s system creates a seamless loop of creating, testing, iterating and learning. 

Now, instead of reporting churn and making guesses about how new offers will land, brand analysts can move to supplying accurate predictive insights and actively preventing churn.