Effective CRM using Predictive Analytics

8 Segmentation application in telecommunications

8.1 Mobile telephony: the business background and objective

In an environment of hard competition, especially in the case of mature markets, offering of high-level quality services is essential for mobile phone network operators to become established in the market. In times of rapid changes and hard competition, focusing only on customer acquisition, which is nevertheless becoming more and more difficult, is not enough. Inevitably, organizations have to also work on customer retention and on gaining a larger “share of customer” instead of only trying to gain a bigger slice of the market. Growth from within is sometimes easier to achieve and equally important as winning customers from competitors.

Hence, keeping customers satisfied and profitable is a one way street for success. In order to achieve this, operators have to focus on customers and understand their needs, behaviors, and preferences. Behavioral segmentation can help in the identification of the different customer typologies and in the development of targeted marketing strategies.

Nowadays, customers may choose from a huge variety of offered services. The days of voice-only calls are long gone. Mobile phones are communication centers and it’s up to the user to select the way of usage that suits his needs. People can communicate via SMS and MMS messages. They can use their phones for connecting to the Internet, for sending e-mails, for downloading games and ringtones, ...