UI design
Future success will not only depend on being first to market. Those operators who make the mobile experience more targeted, tailored and relevant will be the ultimate winners, says Christophe Letellier, General Manager EMEA, Openwave Systems
The communications arena has seen an awful lot of change lately, as providers look to carve out their own space on the playing field. Content companies and Internet and media brands are using specific content and marketing, to target mobile operators to attract essential customer revenue.
The coming years will see both new Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) and established operators make significant investments in the development and marketing of new digital services. In this new era, however, success won’t hinge on being first to market. This time it’s about making the mobile experience more targeted, tailored and relevant than ever before – in short, making the mobile experience personal.
Current market dynamics are creating opportunities for operators to see the benefit and realise the potential of true personalisation.
There are five ways mobile operators can successfully navigate this market evolution:
Drive depth in customer knowledge. Operators can create value if they are knowledgeable about the customer and understand the customer’s needs. Companies that mine for rich consumer knowledge and capitalise on this information by creating, personalising and enhancing services, will become the market leaders.
Customer-savvy Internet companies like Amazon.com and Opodo.com invest enormous resource on customising products, offers, and promotions for each customer.
We’re already beginning to see leading mobile operators embrace the same level of mass segmentation, extending what has been so successful in the wired world to the wireless, with SMS targeted promotions.
The next big step, however, is to take advantage of more real estate on the handset to offer targeted services and promotions that cater to specific groups of users. It’s proven in advertising and direct marketing that tighter targeting leads to higher advertising rates or CPM (cost per thousand impressions). This tighter targeting and higher premiums achieved by utilising the user data is the unique opportunity.
Few companies in the service economy have access to the kind of highly detailed, specific usage information possessed by the mobile operator. Own it. Take advantage of it, and the user will reward it.
Put the user in control. Increasingly sophisticated users are emerging who participate on their own terms, defining how they interact with each other and the media over both fixed and wireless networks.
Mobile operators across the UK are currently involved in projects to make mobile messaging simpler and more powerful while customising the user interface. For example, earlier this year O2 announced that it is developing a prototype messaging user experience that builds upon mobile IM, SMS and (multimedia messages) MMS. The new service, built on Openwave technology, utilises user presence information to deliver a seamless, intuitive service that makes mobile messaging richer and easier to use, while enabling operators to customise user interfaces and update them over the air.
Historically, what’s presented on the menu has been roughly similar across an operator’s subscriber base. We are at an early stage of operators focusing on presenting a more personalised ‘home screen’ based on individual preferences or areas of interest. By allowing users to customise services and content, operators can help build community and loyalty, and facilitate discovery.
Push personalised content. An operators’ user interface and idle screen are critical to ease of navigation and successful search and discovery. Content discoverability is a proactive, user-generated experience in the PC space. Better for the mobile environment is a reactive one.
Location is emerging as a key enabling technology in the drive to personalise the consumer experience. Useful, localised information brings geographic context to each subscriber as they use information, communicate with others and discover entertainment content. This makes the experience richer, easier and more relevant when presented to the user, and it is more likely to be perceived as a personal, valuable service.
So, push relevant, contextually accurate content. Users are more likely to pay for premium content if they are predisposed to discover it.
Converge or die. An operators’ success depends on building a multi-channel approach to premium content and services. The converged approach ensures users can access what they want, when they want it – independent of device or place.
The piecemeal approach to deploying services will not sustain the next wave of user sophistication. The slow uptake of MMS, for example, can be traced back to the one-directional nature of the communication. It’s not conversational. No one responds to a MMS message when it means being charged MMS rates for a text message. Therefore, the conversation ends.
Convergence must mean having relevant, meaningful communication in a way that makes financial and intuitive sense to the communicator. Caller-ID on the television. Voicemail for fixed and mobile lines from one mailbox. Protocols for instant messaging, text messaging and MMS transparent and the service meaningful. Enable two-way conversations across all media – television, broadband, fixed line, mobile.
Be open to the co-opetition. Operators must adopt and adapt to radically new business models – customers want rich content and freedom of choice. Start to shift alliances. Utilise the operator’s key underlying assets and knowledge of your users to partner with your competitors.
We are entering the dawn of a truly customer-centric model. The way that content is monetised will constantly evolve, depending on the whims of the consumer. The key is a shared vision of consumer wants and needs across the entire value chain. Those who fail to see the writing on the wall will fade away. Those left standing will realise the value unleashed by making it personal.