NeuStar has launched the NeuStar Subscriber Growth Service and its corresponding Best Practice Guidelines, which are said to be designed to enable participating mobile operators to increase their mobile Instant Messaging (IM) subscriber uptake by up to 40% every year.
According to NeuStar, the Subscriber Growth Service has been created to help participating operators improve existing mobile IM services considerably and capitalise on the huge market for mobile IM, which grew by 83.3% in 2008 in Western Europe. Operators who adopt the Subscriber Growth Service will work with NeuStar's Strategic Services team throughout the process of launching, marketing, and running an IM service, and will receive consultancy on how to build successful new IP business models based on NeuStar's track record of increasing the level of subscriber uptake.
The company syas that, with access to the only database of real-time subscriber IM behaviour on the market, it is able to tap into each operator's subscriber base to break down which users are engaging with mobile IM, which handsets they use, how regularly they communicate via IM, and how much they spend, and help the operator use this information to optimise the service. By analysing each of the mobile IM services that it has launched since 1999, NeuStar has created the market's first Best Practice Guidelines and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with the aim of supporting operators to effectively launch, market, and drive additional IM services to their subscriber base.
Guenter Krauss, senior vice president and general manager of NeuStar Next Generation Messaging (NGM) said of the launch: "With the Subscriber Growth Service, we can work hand-in-hand with our customers, providing a consultative, analytical service tailored to their market that will deliver long-term business benefits and allow operators the privileged, granular view of subscriber experience they need to increase uptake and profitability. We believe that we can increase an operator's IM subscriber base and help them to generate incremental revenues from compelling next generation messaging services."
The Subscriber Growth Service will help participating operators to substantially grow their existing subscriber bases, and will advise them on the best handsets and price plans, customer lifecycle management and user experience throughout the lifecycle of the service. With only 19.2% of mobile IM users aged between 18 and 24 years old, and 20.3% of mobile IM users aged between 35 and 44 years old, NeuStar has the internal data and real-time analysis capabilities to advise operators how to effectively launch and market a range of IM services to affluent age groups beyond the youth segment. By harnessing this data and analysing IM activity on a daily basis, NeuStar says its customers will be able to develop a loyal base of mobile IM users and also pave the way for new presence-enabled services.
"We have discovered, for example, that the use of mobile clients is growing more rapidly than the use of browsers to deliver IM – and in many instances, users actually prefer accessing IM via a downloadable client because it gives a better user experience," Krauss said of NeuStar's analytical capabilities. "It is this type of data that we will feed back to our customers to help them develop the very best IM services, drive subscriber uptake and ultimately increase retention."