CRM

Tomorrow, Mobivox CEO Peter Diedrich will formally take the wraps off the Mobivox|PL CRM over Voice vision.  The company has commissioned analyst Jon Arnold to produce a white paper for them, but the explanation is frankly simpler than the marketing.

At the core, CRM over Voice is about the very simple idea that carriers should host users address books, and watch to see what they do with those address books.  Over time, as behaviour is tracked, a CRM over Voice application would automatically start to initiate up-sell behaviours with the customer.  For example (taken from the Mobivox white paper):

1. Educate: The first 30-60 days are a critical time in the lifecycle of new
   subscribers. If they are not meaningfully engaged by then, it will become
   costly to re-engage them later on. |PL allows the operator to communicate
   various education messages that are relevant to how long they have had the
   service, what services they are using, their language choice and more.
2. Promote: Word-of-mouth grows in importance for generating new leads with
   each passing year, and is perhaps the most cost-effective method of
   customer acquisition. Since Mobivox |PL knows the subscriber’s patterns -
   what they use, who they call, when, who is in the address book and more – it
   can pinpoint an offer and ask in real-time for a referral. Since the action of
   inviting a new user from a referral can be done right over the phone, this
   represents a very efficient use of CRM with established subscribers.
3. Convert: This is another example of using context to identify in real time a
   segment of subscribers who are good candidates for upselling. A prime
   example would be converting a subscriber from Prepaid to Post Paid. |PL
   would invoke a CRM dialog with subscribers who normally call in to add to
   their balance with a credit card. The subscriber would then be given the
   opportunity to opt for an automatic top-up plan, which is more convenient than worrying about running out of credit. Again, this all takes place in the context of making a phone call, and a voice-based CRM session results in converting the subscriber to a more valuable calling or service plan.

If this sounds like classic web marketing, it should.  Mobivox is simply taking the same techniques that successful web advertisers use and applying them to the phone.  Hallelujah.  You may recall, in 2006, a piece I wrote describing the “Integrated Conversation Web”.  Explicitly described in that piece was the idea that operators, with their rich stores of consumer behavioural information, were best positioned to create contextual selling opportunities.

Mobivox is at the vanguard of a change in the way that phone systems are used in sales and marketing.  Forget about clumsy telemarketers – you’re phone is going to know what you want and need and suggest it to you, and you’ll be happier for it.

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