Paywizard study shows European TV operators are failing to use subscriber data to ensure a positive customer experience

Interviews with top executives from broadcasters, telcos, pay-TV operators and OTT services reveal that all see customer data analytics as a critical strategic aim

London(03 Oct 2018)

Paywizard, the pay-TV subscription, billing and customer relationship management (CRM) specialist, has announced that a new study of major European broadcasters, pay-TV operators, telcos and over-the-top (OTT) service providers reveals that all rank customer experience as a top strategic priority but the vast majority are failing to make effective use of subscriber data and analytics to engage consumers.

In-depth interviews with C-level executives from operators throughout Europe show that, across the board, TV and video service providers plan to increase their use of customer analytics over the next 12-18 months. The research findings reveal that 80% believe they are only at the beginning of their customer analytics journey and need to boost their ability to analyse consumer data to ensure a consistently good customer experience.

Bhavesh Vaghela, Paywizard’s Chief Executive, says: “Lengthy interviews with the operators taking part in the study show clearly that virtually everyone providing a pay-TV service sees analytics as critical to understanding the customer journey and having the ability to take actions that enhance the customer experience – such as highly targeted offers and precisely-timed communications. But most still are unable to do that. There is a large gap between where operators are and where they want to be.”

The research report, Customer analytics in the post-OTT age: insights from European service providers, identified crucialDecision Moments in the customer journey when analytics can be used to determine the right action at the right time. These key points include: acquiring a new customer; tracking content consumption for recommendations and offers; upselling and cross-selling to boost average revenue per user; churn prediction and reduction; billing accuracy; and winning back lost subscribers.

The release of the research report comes on the heels of Paywizard launching Paywizard Singula, an innovative standalone platform that empowers pay-TV operators and OTT providers to take a more intelligent, data-driven actions than ever to engage subscribers. The solution utilises subscriber insights and artificial intelligence (AI) to recommend ‘next best actions’ at each Decision Moment in the customer journey.

Vaghela adds. “The research clearly demonstrates that customer experience has emerged as a key competitive differentiator in the pay-TV sector, with data analytics playing a critical role – but most TV and video operators don’t yet have the tools they need to get through to customers. This analytics capability gap is the void Paywizard Singula can fill for operators capturing data on any platform.”

Ben Keen, the independent technology and media analyst and the author of the commissioned research report, notes: “Overall, the operators we talked to believe the weakest part of their current analytics capability lies in predicting churn and winning back lost subscribers. They also uniformly think that applying analytics to this stage of the customer journey would have one of the most positive impacts on their overall business performance.”

The research shows broadcasters and some stand-alone online video platforms are more advanced in their use of sophisticated analytics, while telcos struggle most to utilise customer data to advance their video businesses. The study also reveals that most operators do not even consider using data analysis to increase revenue from existing customers and, also surprisingly, few are employing analytics to improve billing accuracy, which previous research has shown to be a major annoyance for customers.

Key insights voiced directly by the executives interviewed for the report include:

• “Customer experience ranks no 1. It is the reason we put so much effort into developing our own application and the delivery of content and all the metrics that go with it. It is strategic because the only way to fight churn is to have the best customer experience.”

– Chief Executive of stand-alone OTT provider

• “Data is one of those words that means a lot of different things to different people.  Where we can use insight to better serve audiences and advertisers, then that’s what we are focused on.”

– Broadcaster executive

• “With any operators, the TV business is just not on the agenda of top management. It is two steps down. It is the poor cousin from the country they forgot about.”

– Telco TV executive

• “We are really going to struggle to continue to grow unless we have something that is far more sophisticated than we have at the moment.”

– OTT executive on analytics capability

• “The biggest challenge within our analytics is how to bring the network view and the retail view alongside the customer view.”

– Telco executive on utilising quality of service data

• “The big massive gaping hole that I am desperate to fill is understanding about specific customer behaviours so that we can actually understand the different types of user within our overall service.”

– OTT subscription video on demand executive 

 

About Paywizard

Keeping TV subscribers loyal is becoming harder and harder. The key is to use data to drive an appropriate action from the insight you have about each subscriber. Knowing when someone is going to churn is one thing, but understanding what action is best to retain the customer is another. 

About Ben Keen

Ben Keen is an independent analyst and board-level advisor to companies in the Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) space. He has 30 years of experience helping companies and investors make better-informed decisions based on data-driven understanding of the future.