BUSINESS | Pinoys want personalization, convenience from telcos
Filipino consumers will be willing to change telecom providers if these level of services will not be as convenient.
More than 85% of Filipinos want to experience personalization and convenience from their telecom providers and want their telcos to “adapt” to customers’ changing needs.
Otherwise, Filipino consumers will be willing to change telecom providers if these level of services will not be as convenient, as say, digital apps, including online shopping, digital banks, payment apps OTT platform, etc.
A survey by research outfit Coleman Parkes also said 74% of consumers in the Philippines would “likely switch providers for a customer experience that adapts to their changing needs.”
The survey, which was commissioned by technology firm Amdocs, said this is important as those customers are the same ones bringing in “millions of pesos or dollars of upselling opportunities for communications services providers or CSPs, as well as opportunities to attract millions of new consumers.”
Pinoy consumers expect their CSPs’ experiences to match, if not exceed, those from today’s digital apps and services. Interestingly, 62% of Pinoys surveyed indicated that their experiences “to be like that of online shopping platforms.”
Online shopping has enjoyed a major boom in the Philippines, and most Filipinos find today’s online apps to be very useful and very convenient.
The survey found that 75% consumers in the Philippines would also “be happy” to share even more personal information for highly personalized experiences. However, Pinoys would be “unforgiving about poorly designed personalized experiences, and if the experiences do not match consumers’ expectations, they can lead to frustration negatively impacting the brand and perhaps even attrition.”
Comparatively, 66% of consumers in the Asia Pacific region will be willing to share more personal information in exchange for better service.
The Coleman Parkes survey is a six- market survey with 3,600 consumers in six countries in the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, Japan, and Indonesia.
The survey also interviewed chief marketing officers or CMOs throughout the region.
The survey further revealed that despite the stated benefits of personalization, when it comes to delivering holistic personalized experiences, CMOs find internal silos within their companies the greatest challenge to overcome – rather than access to emerging technologies or money to invest in marketing activities.
According to the survey, nearly 75% (APAC-60% ) of CMOs in the Philippines believe a lack of senior stakeholder buy-in, resistance to change, and a belief that here is no need to further invest in advanced personalization, are hindering more comprehensive personalization efforts and impeding overall marketing objective of delivering compelling brand experience across all touchpoints.
The survey also revealed CMOs in the Philippines, are being too cautious in leveraging consumer data to enhance their personalized products and service design efforts. Survey results revealed 70% (APAC-76%) of CMOs assume that consumers feel digital interactions are just a way to get more data about them, however, only 48% of consumers are concerned about it. This impedes CMOs’ own ability to leverage the right amount and depth of consumer data required to deliver a holistic experience that a digital-age customer wants.
For Amdocs, the solution is for CMOs to work towards the unified goal of leveraging data more effectively and holistically for better product and service design, seamlessly collaborating with multiple stakeholders –CIO, CTO, Customer Service, Operations and creating a cross-functional team to quickly deploy, test, and run applications across all customer interfaces with the brand.
