It is inevitable to think that the pandemic changed the world, and as a consequence, it changed us. In 2020, companies and users woke up to the power of digital service models which continued to gain ground in 2021 as the economy began to recover.
According to McKinsey & Company, it is estimated that the subscription economy has grown by more than 100% annually over the past five years. This growth has been driven by a number of factors, including the rise of digital technologies, changing consumer preferences, and a desire among businesses to build more stable, recurring revenue streams. This report also notes that the subscription model can offer significant advantages, including increased customer engagement, higher customer lifetime value, and the ability to quickly scale and test new products and services.
When making a general review of mobile plans today and evaluating this new reality in its commercial offer, we found an outdated structure and few advances in user experience, despite the significant digital reconfiguration of recent years.
Upon closer examination of the features of these plans, two major observations can be made:
> The offer has been adapting to the mobile evolution. The plans have added features that are in tune with the new digital needs of users, such as unlimited social networks, free music applications and unlimited browsing gigabytes.
> Billing and procurement processes are things of the past. Even today, face-to-face conditionality persists at certain stages of the user's journey, such as signing or activating a plan. There are even companies that continue to send physical documents to the user's home, as they do not have the appropriate channel enabled.
And this is where mobile operators need to make a big difference to bridge the gap between this mobile service offering and outdated payment models. The solution? A model that understands the current behavior of hyperconnected users, who are not interested in complicating their consumer experience by reviewing documents and who need a flexible service with multiple online billing alternatives with credit cards and/or digital wallets.
The present is clear and we know it: we are facing increasingly digitized users, and as such, our solutions must be simple and accompanied by value-added services that enrich their experience, such as personalized plans, online billing facilities, better detail of data consumption and detection of their preferred points of contact.
When analyzing the payment behavior of our digital user base during the pandemic, the trend of recurring payment as a billing pattern is evident; that is, through a monthly, semi-annual or annual subscription, they obtain a service with fixed features that are automatically charged to their credit card each month, as they do with Netflix, Spotify and other digital entertainment platforms.
At the same time, these new users are aiming for a fully digital, frictionless experience, such as pre-approval processes for credit approval and receiving invoices, bills or other types of tax documents.
By blending both components in a flat-rate plan, for example, the billing process is radically simplified and the user experience is enhanced by migrating to an end-to-end digital format.
Having detected the great inclination of users to pay their accounts with credit cards, we developed our own intelligent recurrence engine for the acquisition and purchase process, which allows us to have a commercial history of the customer, avoiding exposing them to tedious credit rating processes.
Bemobi's experience in Brazil, where we have 77% penetration in credit card billing, has been key to building a digital relationship with users, with new and better offers and more efficient orchestration of payments.
➔ Mobile services offered by operators have evolved along with the needs of their users, however, the form and payment channels have not done so in the same way.
➔ The payment experience for subscription services has increased dramatically in recent years, and therefore mobile operators must look to the future in this same direction.
➔ At Bemobi we have created a solution adapted to the needs and behaviors of this new digital era, which solves real problems in the billing, payment and acquisition processes of mobile telephony.
➔ Our model not only seeks to improve the experience of end users, but also simplifies internal processes typical of mobile operators, such as rating, credit scoring, monthly billing and LTV calculation, by having a more accurate history of data, compared to traditional systems.
➔ Along with the digitization of services, it is necessary to evolve the end-customer experience with simple, end-to-end self-managed, 100% digital payment and subscription platforms.
