Analytics
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I recently attended and staffed the Alteryx booth at the COMPTEL PLUS Spring 2013 Convention & EXPO. This is the preeminent event for smaller, Tier 2 communications service providers to learn about business, technology and regulatory trends that will impact their business.
If we think about the original Gartner characterization of data in terms of the three V’s – Volume, Velocity, and Variety – one could easily assume that the data competitive service providers gather about their customers and their network does not meet the traditional qualifications for Big Data. After all, their Tier 1 competition practically wrote the book on Big Data, with massive amounts of data feeding their business and operational support systems at a record pace. Just because these smaller service providers don't have the same amount of data, or get it from as many sources, doesn't mean the business challenges they face aren’t as difficult or can’t be solved with analytics – to get the fourth V – Value. |
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For example, we talked with many wireline carriers about how the growing availability of 4G/LTE wireless service and aggressive campaigns by wireless carriers have caused many longstanding customers to “cut the cord” and disconnect their traditional wired telephone and Internet service. Since most of these smaller carriers don’t have a video service offering to fall back on, the loss of these customers represents a significant hit to their bottom line.
Modern analytics platforms can help these carriers bring together all the data they have about a particular customer – from business data such as billing information and customer support call records, to technical data such as what devices they use and how much bandwidth they consume. This allows them to get a comprehensive view of all aspects that impact a subscriber’s service experience. Valuable, yes, but this is a rear view mirror activity that can only help a carrier determine why a subscriber left.
A greater value is realized when you take all of this data and make predictions about which customers might be next to churn. With Alteryx Strategic Analytics: Communication Edition, this capability starts with robust demographic and segmentation data from Experian, plus other communications industry-specific data sets we bundle within our product. With it, carriers can draw correlations between subscriber segments that have shown a high propensity to churn in the past, and measure the potential impact on current subscribers. Then, using advanced predictive analytics tools, carriers can identify individual subscribers whose proximity to LTE service, past service problems, service price, or many other factors put them “At Risk” to churn. This allows sales and marketing teams to target these subscribers with retention campaigns, and measure their progress toward converting an unhappy subscriber to a satisfied customer to an advocate for their service.
The growth (velocity) of data is well documented, and with more and more sources of data coming online than ever before, today’s competitive service providers can benefit substantially from using analytics to make sense of their growing Big Data assets.
Bob Laurent
Director of Industry Marketing
