Customer Contact – Spend It When It’s Worth It

15 April 2010

Our client is a mobile operator with an established customer base. The operator had a campaign to contact certain customers by SMS to encourage them to make fuller use of the proposition, and also to give special rewards in an attempt to retain customers identified as being at high risk of churn.

The operator had been successful in overcoming operational challenges in order to implement this campaign above, and others too. The next challenge was to identify how financially effective this contact was. Were customers behaving any differently as a result of the contacts? And was this different behaviour more profitable, after accounting for the cost of any special rewards given?

Our Cartesian team identified a tactical data source to inform decisions on contacts, and also the in-development strategic data source. A workaround was used for the inadequacies of the tactical data source, and changes to existing processes were agreed. The strategic data sources were also analysed, and agreements were made so that when it came online, campaigns reporting could continue and new functionality would automatically become possible.

Agile requirements capture with rapid iteration of reporting led to a fully functioning and completely tested report within three weeks from starting work, and meant the operator could already start making decisions on which campaigns to monitor, change and monitor again. The operator was then able to choose whether to request a longer engagement with Cartesian in order to obtain additional functionality. The ROI on the initial work was less than one month, and the project will have paid for itself more than ten times over within the first year.

Cartesian consultants are experts at data analysis and reporting, and have many years of experience working closely with people who make it their business to act on information.

Key success factors of this project were:

• Immediate results – it didn’t matter that the strategic data source wasn’t ready yet. We just used what was there, and made sure we could use the strategic one when it became available. When our improvement recommendations (see below) couldn’t be implemented retroactively on historical campaigns, we made an easy-to-use mapping table;
• Collateral contribution - we positively influenced the operation of both the current data source and the strategic one (e.g. we recommended and received agreement for metadata improvements);
• Iterative development – rapid iterations of reporting allowed earlier realisation of greater value;
• Actionable information - Cartesian’s understanding of the business as well as the technology gives us the power to create reports which simply make sense. It’s then a pleasure to go through the results with the business and discuss the best action based on the information we have extracted from the data;
• Reliable – each release was already comprehensively tested. New releases are for new functionality, not needed for bug fixes;
• Stunning technical performance – our consultants have talents and skills as personable businesspeople, and they also deliver powerful technical solutions which get the job done better.

To discuss how our experts can help your business decide how to spend it when it’s worth it, contact Cartesian today.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 4:50 pm and is filed under News.