3 Screen Solutions (3SS), a provider of software for set-top boxes (STB) and multiscreen entertainment, and NPAW, a global specialist in video business intelligence and predictive analytics, announced that the firms have now combined technologies to create a new data-fueled customer intelligence platform, which they say helps operators prevent churn and enhance average revenue per user (ARPU). Bringing together two award-winning products, NPAW’s analytics platform is now pre-integrated with 3SS’ 3Ready Product Framework. The resulting platfom is billed as "a highly automated analytics-driven experience management solution featuring actionable user insights."
The partners co-branded’ Insights-Driven Personalized User Retention Solution helps video operators strengthen subscriber loyalty. As stated by a press release, "It does so by generating customized and timely retention tactics within a dynamic and personalized user experience (UX), leveraging metrics that reveal subscriber satisfaction levels in real-time."
Bridging the knowledge gap between service provider and subscriber
3SS and NPAW technologies were first deployed together for Austria’s ORS in late 2021. Now the partners are offering their pre-integrated platform to the wider industry. The solution is currently being deployed by a major Latin American operator, yet to be announced. The platform captures and interprets user experience data and features nimble personalization capabilities with advanced UX. As a result, operators can deploy informed, customer- and device-specific marketing and subscriber relationship campaigns optimized to nurture and grow loyalty and satisfaction, and safeguard ARPU.
The partners’ stated goal is to help operators forestall churn caused by UX dissatisfaction. In addition, the solution enables proactive campaigns that can decrease customer service costs. The platform creates a rich user intelligence reservoir that helps service providers improve net promoter score (NPS). Simultaneously, it reduces customer retention costs, mitigating potentially sizeable, yet often fruitless, expenditure on winback tactics.
“If a subscriber has had any unsatisfying experiences with a service, by the time the operator typically becomes aware of it, it may already be too late to say sorry,“ said Ferran Gutierrez Vilaró, CEO and co-founder of NPAW. “When a customer considers churning based on some disappointment with the product, regardless of whether or not the shortcoming was under the operator’s control, their perception has been damaged; any customer care measures and winback strategies might simply be too little, too late, and ultimately a waste of time and money."
The jointly offered technology platform helps to automatically bridge the knowledge gap between service provider and subscriber. Via the platform, as stated by the firms, "The operator gets a far clearer and earlier awareness of how the customer is feeling about the service. Therefore campaigns and promotions can be created that are more likely to succeed in dissuading the user from unsubscribing."
“We’re equipping operators with a system that flags churn risk early on and triggers mitigating actions to positively influence the user’s decision-making; real-time analytics ensures these measures are informed, personalized and attractive, so the operator has a better chance of preserving the relationship,” Gutierrez Vilaró added.
Use cases
Via NPAW’s analytics tools, content providers can, for example, segment their user base according to the level of churn risk. The firm says this analysis can be derived from the number of quality of service and/or experience problems – typically playback issues such as buffering, sluggish zapping, or other problems impacting the user experience – that a subscriber has over time.
This quality of experience metric is then paired with usage data, resulting in a reliable churn probability assessment. Armed with this information, the operator can then take action to try to prevent the viewer from unsubscribing. Meanwhile, with 3SS’ 3Ready technology, pay-TV providers can present customer retention measures in a personalized experience, dynamically tailored to any device.
“Harvesting video intelligence really puts the analytics to work, but tracking and dashboards are not enough,” commented Pierre Donath, 3SS CMO and CPO. “If a customer is thinking about churning, the operator needs to know early on; the data to raise the warning bell needs to be automatically generated and available in real-time, it has to be informative, and rapidly understood and interpreted. The operator may have an arsenal of anti-churn business tools standing by, but unless the right one is deployed before the pivotal moment in the user’s decision-making, the retention initiatives will be ineffective.”
Super-aggregator capabilities
The partners contend the joint 3SS-NPAW solution can help super-aggregators overcome the challenge of understanding customer experiences across each item in their content portfolios, and empowers them to meaningfully act on that knowledge.
As stated by the firms: "Being able to know each user’s level of satisfaction with third-party apps, as well as with the service’s in-house apps, means the operator gets a 360-degree understanding of the entire super-aggregated UX for each subscriber. The operator is thus far better equipped to precisely offer the user the right retention tool or campaign, and to do so at the right time to have the greatest possible chance to keep the subscriber happy and engaged."
Additionally, thanks to experience management capabilities of 3Ready Control Center, these anti-churn measures can be created in real-time, automated, and delivered in a personalized and device-specific UX.
In an example scenario, the operator could serve to low-churn-risk subscribers a homescreen which highlights operator-owned content, meanwhile presenting medium-churn-risk viewers with a one-month-free promotion. The operator can proactively try to satisfy high-churn-risk users with more generous promotions and by showcasing the service’s most popular channels and apps.
Additionally, automation and A/B testing capabilities within 3Ready empower the operator to experiment with new features and offers, as well as to continuously optimize the whole service across all devices.
“The combination of NPAW technology and 3Ready gives the operator holistic customer understanding,” Donath continued. “With service quality analytics, usage data, real-time awareness of each user’s satisfaction, and experience management capabilities, the service provider has much better knowledge of what’s needed to achieve operational excellence and win the heart of every customer.”