IBM Business Analytics Reduces Customer Churn and Drives Revenue for Communications Service Providers

IBM SPSS Predictive Analytics Transforms Traditional Business Processes by Improving Quality of Customer Touch Points

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Feb 16, 2010, 12:01 ET

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Digital +, UPC Broadband and Tesco Mobile are significantly improving their customers' experience by using IBM® SPSS® predictive analytics software to gain deeper insights into subscriber behaviors and preferences which will improve customer retention, call center interactions and marketing campaigns.

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As mobile broadband expands in developed markets, devices like the smartphones and tablets are proliferating rapidly – challenging the traditional Communication Service Provider's (CSPs) core business capabilities. In order to succeed, CSPs need to aggressively respond to competitive pressures, reduce customer churn, optimize product portfolios and become more relevant and personalized.

"IBM's business analytic solutions for CSPs can use all available data – including unstructured data – to predict business outcomes, spot trends as they emerge, improve customer service, drive customer value and reduce churn by building a better understanding of the customer," said Scott Stainken, general manager for IBM's telecommunication industry. "By leveraging real-time information from every point of contact, CSPs can proactively manage their customers based on their preferences and behavior, which will improve customer satisfaction and revenue growth, while reducing marketing costs and lost business."

Digital + Transforms Contact Center to Reduce Customer Churn

Digital +, part of Sogecable in Spain, is using IBM SPSS predictive analytics to optimize its call center by predicting individual customer behaviors and proactively directing call center agents to provide real-time recommendations while engaged with customers.

To leverage every customer interaction and create targeted sales opportunities, IBM SPSS predictive analytics enhances the decision process of Digital +'s 1.7 million inbound calls a year by modeling and scoring sales opportunities, such as a product upgrade or new service, for a particular customer through a "pop-up" card.

"Digital + improved its customer satisfaction with customized offers, reduced churn by 20 percent and increased cross-sell campaigns by 5 to 10 percent over outbound campaigns," said Omar Rois, customer analysis manager at Digital +. "IBM SPSS predictive analytics is paramount to improving our customer satisfaction and loyalty, and contributed to a significant increase of customer retention within only two months after deploying the software."

UPC Broadband Develops More Focused Marketing Campaigns

UPC Broadband, headquartered in the Netherlands, provides digital and analogue television, broadband internet and digital telephony services to consumers and business customers. In the highly competitive telecom industry, UPC faces the challenge of retaining customers and increasing sales ratios every day.

To reduce customer churn and boost earnings, UPC aimed to gain a thorough insight into customer behavior by analyzing its customer data. UPC selected IBM SPSS predictive analytics for its ability to easily analyze customer behavior, socio-demographic data and product purchases, and leverage this insight to undertake more targeted marketing campaigns.

"Using IBM SPSS predictive analytics, we can now build predictive models for each specific segmentation group and the response is up to four times higher compared to previous campaigns," said Jim Jenkins, director of database marketing at UPC. "In addition, thanks to the ability to identify customer churn early and proactively take targeted actions in this area, UPC is reducing its customer turnover substantially, saving considerable revenues per annum."

Tesco Mobile Targets Most Profitable Customers

Tesco Mobile, one of the UK's fastest growing mobile networks with a reputation of outstanding customer satisfaction, sought to maintain its position and competitive edge in the telecommunications industry. The organization selected IBM SPSS predictive analytics to improve customer loyalty by better understanding motivation, opinions and preferences.

Tesco Mobile is now able to deliver revenue generating offers and incentives to its customers who are at risk of churning. With IBM SPSS predictive analytics, they are able to turn their data into new intelligence for the design of subsequent campaigns and the results are used to better target those customers who can generate more revenue for the company.

About IBM

For more information go to www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/telecom.

About SPSS, an IBM Company

SPSS, an IBM Company, is a leading global provider of predictive analytics software and solutions. The Company's complete portfolio of products – data collection, statistics, modeling and deployment – captures people's attitudes and opinions, predicts outcomes of future customer interactions, and then acts on these insights by embedding analytics into business processes. SPSS solutions address interconnected business objectives across an entire organization by focusing on the convergence of analytics, IT architecture and business process. Commercial, government and academic customers worldwide rely on SPSS technology as a competitive advantage in attracting, retaining and growing customers, while reducing fraud and mitigating risk. SPSS was acquired by IBM in October 2009. For more information, visit http://www.spss.com.