US operators failing to make the most of customer data
Details
Editor
| 04 April 2019

A study of major US broadcasters, pay-TV operators, telcos and OTT providers has revealed that none are currently making the most of their data to more effectively engage customers and prospects.

As well as showing that most of these companies are actually only near the beginning of their analytics journey, the research from pay-TV subscription, billing and customer relationship management (CRM) specialist Paywizard also found that providers see customer experience as crucial for timely subscriber engagement. They rank it as a top strategic priority for their business.

The new study, Customer Analytics In The Post-OTT Age: Insights From US Service Providers report, was based on a series of in-depth interviews with C-level executives and follows a report on the European market released in 2018.

It found that service providers in the US are ahead of those in Europe in their level of analytics adoption but still have far to go. Most operators were shown to be failing to even consider using data analysis to increase revenue from existing customers and few are employing analytics to improve billing accuracy – which previous Paywizard research has shown to be a major annoyance for customers.

US standalone online video platforms are leading the way in the deployment of analytics and are more advanced in their use of sophisticated techniques while telcos struggle most to utilise customer data to build their video businesses.

“It is a common misconception in the media industry that customer engagement is all about content recommendations,” noted Paywizard chief executive Bhavesh Vaghela (pictured). “There is such a huge focus on content consumption, however this is only one part of the entire customer journey a consumer experiences when engaging with a TV service. It’s clear that US pay-TV providers are still struggling to use subscriber data to understand their customers’ needs and drive action throughout the customer lifecycle – such as highly targeted offers and precisely-timed communications. What really struck home was the fact that most are admittedly unable to do that, so there remains a large gap between where operators are and where they want to be.”