Because today's telco market is highly competitive, and because it's easy for people to switch providers, customer churn has become a real issue within the industry. But in every challenging situation, there's always an opportunity to be found – a telco that's able to provide superior experiences can take advantage of churn to win new customers, keep its customers happy, and build loyalty with them over the longer term.
Payment is one of the most important experiences in the telco–customer relationship. Making payment easy and seamless is a way to help keep consumers on side. On the other hand, a bumpy payment experience can lead to a customer questioning the entire relationship with their existing telco provider, and potentially looking for a better one elsewhere.
New customers: tell the good from the bad
If your competitors put new customers through a clunky verification process at checkout, you can stand out by providing an experience that's fast and painless, without raising your fraud risk.
Even if you know nothing about a new customer, you can use a fraud detection tool that draws on authenticated identity data from trusted third-party sources (alongside the credit checks you do as a matter of course) to help you make that decision quickly and transparently at checkout.
As well as streamlining the checkout experience, this approach can help you:
accept more transactions;
reduce the chance of declining good orders;
increase your authorisation rates.
How tokenization helps with retention
Customers want choice about how they pay, as well as an easy payment process. Having to enter payment details or other credentials each time they add a service or renew a contract can put them off, which could lead to a lost sale or even a lost customer.
This is much less likely to happen if you can always recognise your returning customers. You can do this by using a token management service to add a unifying layer on top of all the network tokens you use with your acquirers. This creates a single token that provides a 360-degree view of each customer. Using the token lets you recogniseand track a customer across devices, services, channels — and even across your own brands — no matter how they choose to pay. Besides reducing the data entry burden for consumers, this ability to acknowledge customers opens the door to sophisticated omnichannel marketing strategies that can further boost loyalty.
Make recurring payments frictionless
You'll want to minimise any issues with recurring card payments that could prompt customers to look at competitors' deals.
One way is to take recurring payments on the day of the month when a customer is most likely to have the funds in their account (a day or two after their salary comes in, for example). That way, you minimise the chance of a payment being refused for lack of funds. And to avoid bothering customers with requests for new card data when an existing card is expiring (or being replaced for another reason), consider using a token management service for automated, real-time card-on-file updates.
You should also consider choosing a payment service provider whose platform is highly available, to reduce the chance of any downtime affecting payment processing.
Protect your customers against fraud
People's reliance on mobile phones has been accelerated by the global pandemic and by the Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirement of PSD2 (in regions where it applies). The personal and payment data that so many phones now contain and the role of SMS messages in SCA make phones (and telco account data) an increasingly attractive target for fraudsters. So securing them is more important than ever.
To authenticate fraudulent transactions that are in scope for SCA, fraudsters may attempt to intercept SMS messages or perform SIM swaps or hijackings. They may steal payment or telco account data to make fraudulent purchases, ranging from expensive devices to intangibles like SIM-only contracts that may be used for criminal activities.
To help keep your customers safe, you need to combine an effective fraud screening tool with a solution that protects against account takeover. You should also make education about fraud protection a part of your regular customer communications.
Click here to learn more about transforming churn into growth with seamless payment services and effective fraud management with Cybersource.
These materials and best practice recommendations are provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for marketing, legal, regulatory or other advice.
Recommended marketing materials should be independently evaluated in light of your specific business needs and any applicable laws and regulations. Cybersource is not responsible for your use of the marketing materials, best practice recommendations, or other information, including errors of any kind, contained in this document.
About Nicolas Engel
Nicolas Engel has worked in the French fraud and payment industry for 19 years, 12 of those years in the telecom industry, building his experience with global merchant companies across a variety of industry sectors including telecoms such as SFR and Virgin Mobile, and health and beauty with Sephora. He is now Director of Global Services for Cybersource.
About Cybersource
Cybersource helped kick start the ecommerce revolution in 1994 and haven’t looked back since. Through global reach, modern capabilities, and commerce insights, we create flexible, creative commerce solutions for everyday life – experiences that delight customers and spur growth globally. All through the ease and simplicity of one digital platform to manage all payment types, fraud strategies, and more. Knowing we are part of Visa and their security obsessed standards, you can trust that business is well taken care of – wherever it may go.
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