Taiwan is an over-saturated and highly oligopoly market, before 4G mobile launched in 2014, there were already 5 mobile carriers in Taiwan (CHT, TWM, FET, GT &Vibo). The mobile penetration in Taiwan was over 120%, and the Big 3s overtook 87% of the market share. T Star entered 4G mobile market in 2014, with disruptive pricing and 360 digitalization strategies; we soon became a blockbuster, and reached 1M subscribers in 2015/05 and later marked the 2M subscribers in 2018/02.
In 2014, knowing that we were the smallest mobile carrier with the least store outlets and customer service representatives, we profoundly knew that we needed to leverage digital technology to break through the operating challenges as well as to reduce the expense. As our base soared, the demand for services also escalated, the needs for better service solution and fast deployment had becoming more and more crucial.
We started to set-up a 360°eService & eSales platform to enable 24/7 self-service online as well as to synchronize user experience across the board. In 2014/11, T Star official site and APP was online in service. With big data technology and single customer view member center, our subscribers are able to check their voice and data concurrent usage and detailed calling logs, retrieve bill statements, bill payment, etc., via eService center anywhere anytime. T Star APP equipped with full eSales and eService functions has awarded the best in customer satisfaction among our competition, and out ranked the rest in many APP contests.
With less than 1/3 of the resources of the Big3s, but T Star is able to surpass the market growth rate with 10 fold both in subscription and revenue, we believe digitalization strategy is the key in these achievements.
Most of the time for the incumbents, customers are merely statistics, presented in a way of KPIs reached or failed, but for T Star, a customer is more than a number. In executing our eService and eSales strategies, we wanted each of our employees to serve our customers’ needs with a heart. We keep reminding everyone that when you are out of office, without the working title, we are actually other brands’ customers as well. We should serve each of our subscribers the way that we would like to be served by other brands—been treated uniquely and responsively. Because each of our subscribers was relatively more difficult to acquire in the first place, this made us easier to carry out this belief down to every execution.
We chose age 25-44 mobile users as target audience because they are the decision maker for mobile subscription, and this group of people believes in change and justice because they live in a speedy and competitive world. They are also more opened to new ideas and new brands because they are bombarded with all sorts of information in the digital era, and brand loyalty is no longer a virtue. Digital media are more adopted on a day-to-day basis by this segment, thus we can increase our 360 eService & eSales adoption as well as usage frequency more effectively.
In Taiwan, mobile carrier’s APP is typically a mirror version of their official site. It’s overwhelmed with utilities, products, promotions and customer supports, as a result, customers are often confused and lost. T Star eService & eSales APP upholds the belief that a true mobile service APP is the one which put customers’ needs first. It is not just a utility tool but a personalized service center to serve each individual. With T Star APP, we realize total Immersive Experience and also uplift industry standard.
Before T Star eService & eSales service was launched, we had conducted a thorough study regarding call center logs and voice of customers from internet. Our eService & eSales APP was designed in accordance to users’ needs. All personal information was real-time depicted in dashboard format, and any user could reformat the interface layout by simple drag and drop at their discretion. Based on the usage and preference patterns, we built data models and divided our user base into 20 micro-segments, and each would be recommended and fed with different programs and messages to maximize their sense of relevancy and responsive rate.
As of 2018/03 our total eService & eSales cumulative users has reached 2.2M with 1.5M App downloads and a monthly active rate of 62%.
Each year, we closely monitored all the aspects that we set forth and achieved encouraging results:
- Increase customer satisfaction from 67% to 87% in 3 years —Exceeded
- Reduce per customer service expense 30% in 3 years—Exceeded
Online and offline integration process has achieved 99% by TSTAR APP currently. APP is able to process all the offline services and information searching, thus, it’s not necessary for users to worry about whether real stores nearby; In October 2019, we also initiated the in-app activation mechanism, which make us able to offer various digital services right after SIM applying.