How to use data to reduce churn: a guide for Communications Service Providers

For Communications Service Providers (CSPs), churn isn’t a fun, old-timey way to make butter. It’s a fundamental yet detestable metric they have to track—and a constant reminder that they can lose subscribers just as fast as they gain them.

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Person using a tablet while talking on the phone.

One of the best ways to reduce churn is to personalize your service offerings so customers can build the smart home experience that works best for their needs. “If my customer base includes 100 houses, I should have 100 different customized services running,” Hotchkiss said. “The more that you customize the service around the consumer, the less likely they are to churn.” In fact, we’ve seen that people who use the Plume platform, which offers customized Smart Home Services, churn 30% less than those who don’t have access to personalized network options. And among people with specific pain points, such as needing connectivity across large homes, Plume helped reduce churn by an additional 30%.

Deliver personalized services and support

According to Statista, cable and telecom companies have two of the highest customer churn rates across all U.S. industries. Meanwhile, Qualtrics reported that TV and internet Service Providers have the highest percentage of customers reporting bad experiences, which, of course, leads to turnover.

Adam Hotchkiss

Vice President of Customer Solutions

Churn is a huge cost for Service Providers. Those who only subscribe to internet, which most new customers are doing these days, are likely to churn at a rate of around 30% per year, so you have to replace almost one-third of your customers every year.”

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The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way forever. Starting now, CSPs can begin reducing churn and improving their Net Promoter Scores (NPS). They just have to tap into one of their most valuable resources: data. “Everybody should be measuring everything. Can you reduce churn, can you make the customer satisfied?” Hotchkiss said. “As you evolve, you need to use data to be able to measure and react.” By gathering data in real-time over a cloud-controlled network, CSPs have the power to improve customer experiences and prevent turnover. Here’s how.

People who use the Plume platform churn 30% less...

This data-backed, customized approach applies to support services, too. “There are triggers that tell you if a customer is happy or unhappy. And if a customer is unhappy, you want to contact them proactively and find out what you can do to help,” Hotchkiss said. “Even if it’s just sending an email that says, ‘We’ll get you in contact with somebody right away to help you out with the issue.’” Maybe a customer isn’t using their mobile app as much as usual, for instance. Or their internet connection isn’t as strong in one part of their house. The CSP can contact them proactively and suggest ways to improve their experience and better individualize their services before they consider churning.

Create customized marketing campaigns

If your sales and marketing teams want to know what types of products, services, and features to push for the next quarter, just look at your cloud-collected data. As Hotchkiss said, “If you can see the trends happening on your network, then you can start making those product decisions.” Say, for example, you see that a lot of subscribers are purchasing streaming sticks, and you have a service that runs on those devices. You can send emails or notifications directly to those customers with information about how to access those services for a limited-time discount. “You can use deep analytics to get that information and increase the adoption rate of services marketed just to those customers,” Hotchkiss said.

Person using their credit card while on their mobile device.

Improve cyber-security across devices

Cyber-security is a growing concern in our connected world. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, the number of data breaches increased dramatically in 2021, impacting more than 160 million people. CSPs have an opportunity—and a responsibility—to help consumers protect their connected devices by tracking real-time data about how those devices behave. “When you see all the types of devices and the traffic flowing over them—and you start to learn the behavior of those devices—then you can apply very specific security profiles to those devices,” Hotchkiss said. If devices start to show anomalous behavior, for example, like communicating with different servers or booting up in a strange way, CSPs can step in and proactively help customers safeguard their networks and data. “You can flag that anomalous behavior, analyze it, and then quarantine the device,” Hotchkiss said. “And the more devices that we see, [the more] we’re able to improve our algorithms to make sure those devices are secure.”

Identify

Analyze

Quarantine

In fact, that’s true for all data-driven strategies. As long as CSPs are using a cloud-based platform, they can consistently collect and access data about their customer’s experiences, and then use that data to deliver even more personalized services and support. “It all comes down to the end customer experience—that’s the North Star we want to measure against,” Hotchkiss said. “Nothing really matters outside of, ‘is the customer satisfied? [Are you] giving proactive support, making sure that the devices are well connected and working?’ That all leads back to a higher NPS, which in return reduces churn.”

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