An article by Martin Morgan, from Openet on ways to move from existing bit-pipe proposition to value based offers which signifies a shift from commodity-based competition to more innovative pricing. Value-based mobile broadband services and pricing, being the next frontier for communication service providers (CSPs) enables them to tap into niche markets and improve average revenue per user (ARPU). Openet's Dynamic Services helps CSPs to implement value-based charging which is the holy grail in pricing, to deliver insights derived from real time customer analytics data which can contribute significantly in the design of new products or add-on services.
Source: Openet
The five ways as descriped by Openet
1. Start with Simple Pricing for Basic Bundles –this encourages data adoption and usage. Operators are trying innovative ways to encourage data adoption – ranging from app specific services passes (e.g. facebook, twitter passes) for low monthly costs, and removing the uncertainty of high data costs by real-time communication on data usage and costs.
2. Provide Dynamic Offers Direct to the Device – these provide the foundation for value based pricing. They are real-time, personalized offers delivered direct to the customer’s device which provide an effective method to upsell relevant offers. As simple example is upselling a 1GB data block when a customer is approaching their monthly data limit
3. Use Policy Controls to Manage Product Features – this is used to provide the ability to control product features. An example of a dynamic service enabled by policy control is upselling additional speed— e.g. upselling data block at high speed, when a customer has reached their limit and speed is throttled, and / or selling speed boosts for specific services (e.g. hi def video).
4. Offer OTT and Value Added Services Bundles - Selling OTT and value added services helps the operator to add value based elements into their offers, delivers a better offer to the customer, (e.g. buy content without using data allocation) and also the content provider gets a partnership that can market the content offers direct to their customer base.
5. Take the Uncertainty out of Data Roaming – Many operators are starting to stimulate data roaming by offering service passes. These passes enable a customer to buy a volume of roaming data for use over a pre-defined time (e.g. 1 day, 1 week) thus providing clear usage and cost transparency.
