Photo by David Pisnoy on Unsplash

For more than 10 years we have been working with communication service providers around the world and one of the biggest challenges they’ve always reported has been customer churn. Even the best service in the world can’t prevent customers from fleeing if what you’re offering isn’t what they need.

A user may be willing to pay more for a better experience. However, if you can’t provide the service they need, you’ve lost their business.

High customer satisfaction is strongly tied to top-performing technology – cutting-edge solutions that end-users want and need to steer their company towards success in today’s ultra-competitive marketplace.

Research shows that customers like these are looking to graduate to more sophisticated and integrated collaboration solutions, driven by the need to support cloud- and mobile-based communications. An Infonetics Research whitepaper reveals the following:

• The top Unified Communications /collaboration device used by surveyed businesses is the smartphone, signaling a transition from traditional laptops and desktops.
• When making their choice, businesses will focus on the product’s reliability and technology innovation. Not the price!
• The off-premises cloud services market is expected to reach an all-time high value of over $200 billion by 2018, with software representing more than half of these services.
• For the first time in history, voice usage slowed among business users and mobile broadband outpaced SMS as the largest revenue generator of mobile data.

A quick interpretation of these conclusions for service providers around the world and their business customers:

• Based on the data from the research, it is clear that the solution you offer needs to bring mobility to your customers. At the same time, you will be preferred over a different provider when you deliver them secure, business-level BYOD as well. Basically, that means that you’ll be able to win them over faster if you highlight the double benefit – you are device-independent (yes, we will unchain you from your desktop phone) and you can be reached at anytime you want (really, it’s a matter of policy and choice), anywhere you are (at your computer, in a conference room, on the road, in a different office etc.) without the callers knowing that you are not at your desk – I have a picture in my head now, however it’s safer to keep it there 😉
• There is a Chinese saying that translates like this: what cheap not good, what good not cheap. Price shouldn’t matter as long as you are able to communicate the value. Your customers will look at the benefits they get when using your offer and not at the price, if and only if you properly communicate the value.
• Most SMBs are beginning to understand the advantages brought on by cloud adoption and start making the switch. For service providers, this is the best time to ride the SaaS wave, enlarge their customer base, and grow their revenues. That should be you!
• Higher usage of mobile data, in other words anything Internet-based, includes an increase in Internet telephony. And let’s not forget that hosted PBX/UC platforms offer more advanced functionality than mobile services, so this shift will only help you grow even more.

In plain English, in the race to get the largest slice of the pie, service providers are moving away from archaic, siloed communication devices and gravitating towards integrated, mobile- and cloud-centric approaches. The logical choice. What about you?