Chapter 2
Video streamers in a subscription showdown
Video streaming’s disruptive capabilities are in decline. In the U.S. alone, consumers now have a choice of 50 different streaming and video-on-demand platforms to choose from. And that staggering list of options is in addition to basic cable packages, free-to-air TV and YouTube. It would be easy to argue that there are too many options available when searching for entertainment or, more importantly, deciding on a subscription.
And while as a delivery service, streaming is still a big enough and strong enough proposition to continue eating into traditional TV’s market share, the wider media landscape is becoming so saturated with choices that expanding or even maintaining existing customer bases is going to be increasingly difficult over the months and years ahead. What’s more, this challenge would still exist even if consumers weren’t currently trying to control unnecessary spending because increasingly each of these options demands a subscription, and subscription fatigue is setting in.
Even though organizations are fully aware of these issues and taking steps to address them, there’s no single approach brands can take to reduce attrition or attract new customers. Ultimately, different demographics and different geographical regions will demand different actions.
Reducing the overall subscription fee through an advertising-supported tier or other introductory offers is no guarantee of success. Value for money isn’t measured purely in terms of price
For instance, even reducing the overall subscription fee through an advertising-supported tier or other introductory offers is no guarantee of success. Value for money isn’t measured purely in terms of price. The service needs to stand out among its direct competition in terms of ease of use, personal tastes and preferences, and depth and breadth of content. What’s more, it needs to stand out against the wider subscription-based elements of the media, entertainment and gaming landscape.
Tailoring an approach against these criteria is only possible with detailed customer data and insights that can uncover behavioral trends and preferences from country to country, demographic to demographic, and the underlying motivating factors that influence the decision-making process.
Streaming platforms still have some breathing space but don’t have a captive audience. Cable and satellite TV providers can just as easily start leveraging data to elevate their historical CX standards and do so at a point in time where, thanks to financial constraints, their offers and packages can quickly start looking like a good value proposition.
Takeaways
Assess and adjust your current value proposition within the wider market.
Take a region-by-region approach to developing new packages and offerings.
Use customer insights to identify behavioral patterns that could signal attrition and develop mitigating actions.
Spotlight
Why pay TV needs customer experience analytics to meet the streaming CX benchmark
Customer experience analytics helps organization understand who its customers are and what drives them — their needs and expectations, the motivation behind certain behaviors and their sentiment towards the organization, its products and services.
It works by collecting, compiling and analyzing all available structured and unstructured customer data within an organization to optimize the ability to make customer-centric business decisions within and beyond the contact center.
This data includes information contained in a CRM system and all the defining CX metrics such as CSAT and NPS. However, because CX analytics leverages AI, machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NPL), it can also process individual words and phrases used by every customer and the responding agent in every channel, whether email or chat or a live telephone conversation.
While it is becoming easier to access tools related to CX analytics off the shelf, it’s crucial to remember that every organization is different
This level of insight means that contact center performance can be adjusted literally in the moment. Coaches can track agent performance on a contact-by-contact basis and provide micro-coaching sessions or guidance between customer engagements. Likewise, because it can track emotional sentiment and customer disposition, automated prompts and the immediate provision of pertinent information triggered by the content and context of each interaction can steer the outcome of individual contacts between customers and the organization to a positive conclusion in real time.
These capabilities also mean common contact drivers and recurring issues that could be resolved through automated or self-service channels can be easily identified, as can the characteristics and cues that define both brand advocates and brand detractors.
As an organization’s use of CX analytics continues, its capabilities increase thanks to larger data sets and the fact that AI learns as it goes, improving incrementally with each interaction.
These capabilities include automated quality assurance and agent scoring, automating post-call work and even beginning to predict customer behavior and the best course of action based on historical evidence.
While it is becoming easier to access tools related to CX analytics off the shelf, it’s crucial to remember that every organization is different. As such, applying the technology in isolation, without a clear methodology or scope of project or governance could prove a real hurdle in making the technology really deliver on its potential.
This is why partnership is key — top-tier outsourcers should have robust CX analytics capabilities and direct experience in an organization’s business sector to ensure the correct calibration of the technology.