Mobile apps are becoming an indispensable tool for providing a hassle-free customer experience for telecom operators. Even though customers spend most of their time on their smartphones, not all customers use self-care apps. This could be due to ineffective customer engagement software, a lack of understanding, or any other issue. All these issues can be addressed through effective push notifications and other digital engagement strategies to improve retention.

Telecom companies can improve engagement and customer experience by digitizing customer self-care products while also opening a new sales channel. In terms of self-care, mobile apps are extremely useful. Sending a well-designed push notification campaign has many advantages. They are most useful to mobile users when they receive value from a contextually relevant message.

However, discussing whether you should create push notification campaigns without describing how to do so properly isn’t very useful.

This post will explain all about sending effective push notifications, including content, timing, targeting, personalization, and the impact on a customer’s buying journey.

Why do you need push notifications In the telecom industry?

The cost is a key driving factor to attract or retain customers. Yet, telecom operators recognize that customer experience management is now an essential component. As a result, they can create competitive differentiation, maintain market uniqueness, and positively impact revenues. Customers are becoming more tech-savvy at the same time, demanding greater sophistication in their user experience at all stages of their journeys. These customers are more willing to switch service providers if the user experience is poor.

Telecom customers can now access products and services through various online and offline channels in today’s fragmented/direct digital model. These are largely disaggregated, and to meet a specific need, the customer must visit multiple storefronts.

The fragmentation of both the customer experience and the service delivery lifecycle has recently been funneled into aggregation to provide a single presentation layer to customers. The goal is to consolidate and symmetrically distribute information from multiple channels to digital channels, encouraging customers to use them for consolidated and symmetrical data, resulting in a digital omnichannel experience.

In recent years, the adoption of telecom self-care apps has been a significant goal for the industry. Telecom service providers want to engage their app users and become their preferred gateway for tasks like bill payments, balance recharges, wallet transactions, and purchasing Value Added Services (VAS).

How Do You Resolve Engagement & Retention Problems?

Customer engagement software should be simple to use and provide users with a pleasant experience. Customer onboarding, the first step in the app cycle, should be smooth, engaging, and assist customers in understanding the app. Subscribers should be aware of the self-care app’s issues and the questions it answers.

Add Customer Service Options to the App:

Customers today want to make the least amount of effort possible to resolve their support issues. Self-service tools are becoming more popular as they provide convenient support without requiring users to wait in long lines. As a result, combining customer service and the mobile self-service app will help operators improve customer satisfaction.

Improve Retention with In-App Messages:

Research states that deploying a self-care app with an in-app messaging feature improves retention by 46%.

Relevant Content in Push notifications

Another key factor in ensuring customer satisfaction is the availability of relevant content that is updated on a regular basis. Onboarding and other customer interactions can be used to determine what kind of content customers want. The app should include content that answers common end-user questions and helps them get the most out of their paid services.

Telecom Marketers’ Obstacles to Self-Care App Adoption

Selfcare App is a compelling way for Telecom companies to communicate with their customers on a 1:1 basis. Apps provide the telecom industry with a new sales channel. However, getting users to download the telecom Selfcare app is only the beginning for marketers. The challenge is to maintain a more consistent and interactive connection with users. Push notifications have become critical for marketers to engage users on the platform proactively in this situation.

Push notifications have several advantages for telecom marketers.

There are a few ways that the telecom industry can benefit directly from using push notifications to overcome the problem. Let’s take a look at the key benefits of push notifications for telecom marketers.

1. Improved User Engagement Through Onboarding

Push notifications can be used to influence the user journey right from the start. Prepaid and postpaid users, for example, have different user journeys. Marketers can use predefined user flows to increase user engagement on Selfcare apps.

2. Use event-based triggers to increase transactional revenue.

Event-based triggers is highly effective at reactivating abandoned users. It also encourage them to complete transactions in the app. You can also use push notifications to send timely reminders to both postpaid and prepaid users in situations like low balance, data recharge, and bill due date approaches. Users will prefer your Selfcare app for payment transactions due to this personalized experience.

3. Churn Prediction for Dormant User Reactivation

Inactivity among users is a major factor in predicting app churn, and you can easily identify dormant users if you continuously monitor their actions. Push notifications can help you figure this out by analyzing data such as app opens, click rates, and transaction completion rates, all of which convey the user’s current activity state.

4. Up-selling and cross-selling user behaviour segmentation

To provide relevant offerings, you can personalize cross-promotions and upselling campaigns for users. Use user behaviour segmentation to tailor your recommendations for data plans, hotspot devices, wallet, offers, and Value Added Services (VAS) to meet the needs of your users.

Types of Push Notifications That Work Best

1. Push notifications for engagement

You can send the following to increase in-app user engagement:

• In-app activity: Let users know what’s new in your app.
• Tips and tutorials: Share information on savings or highlight new best practices.
• New activity: Notify users of an upcoming event or live stream that other users are watching.

2. Push Notifications for Transactions

Provide seamless customer experiences to users throughout their shopping journey:

• Send push notifications when a purchase is completed, processed, shipped, or delivered.
• Payment notifications: Provide customers with peace of mind by notifying them when their payment has been received.
• Notifications about bill payments: Remind users to pay their bills on time.
• Information that must be updated: Use gentle reminders to remind users to keep their information up to date at all times (e.g., your credit card is expiring soon).

3. Push notification for reminders

Notifications about upcoming changes: Notify users about upcoming changes to their app, or remind them about new features or products.

Notifications when a user achieves a goal in your app: Increase engagement when a user achieves a goal in your app (e.g. unlocking a new level, or a loyalty points checkpoint).

4. Push Notifications That Recur

Before you send, use A/B testing and analytics data to figure out when your customers prefer to receive regular communications:

Allow users to set up personal push notifications with reminders of events, shows, and more on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Notifications about new newsletters: Inform users about new newsletters

Remind users about the related events

5. Push Notifications for Promotions

These pushes elicit excitement from users and increase brand engagement:

• Send an exciting push notification about a sale they won’t be able to resist.
• Notify users about a live event (such as a live video feed) that is taking place within your app.
• Send a countdown to the end of a limited-time offer or sale on a daily or hourly basis.
• Personalize your push notifications by wishing users a happy holiday or offering a special sale related to that holiday.

Takeaway

Marketers can increase engagement by improving the user experience by using optimized push notifications, also known as “Rich Push Notifications. Therefore, Telecom marketers can strategically design push notifications with interactive features (video, GIFs, CTAs, and so on) to help users take action based on their intent or event. Therefore, rich Push Notifications can be used to guide users directly to the payment action page.

To fully exploit the potential of Selfcare apps, telecoms need a razor-sharp strategy and a viable marketing channel. Marketers can use push notifications to include both a marketing channel and an execution strategy in their campaigns.