Question

How have data-driven customer churn/retention approaches evolved over time in the telecommunications space for mobile network operators?

Answer 1

Initially it was like the Wild West and mobile network operators were solely focused on gaining market share through acquisition. 

Once they had acquired the customers,there were efforts to improve retention using untargeted methods which generalised based on the duration of the contract. Usually messages of renewal were sent towards the end of the contract.

The approaches to customer retention improved as data science became more mainstream and MNOs started calculating churn probability and targeted the customers that had the highest churn risk.

To improve profitability, MNOs started looking at the intersection of customer lifetime value and chrn risk and used both factors in determining who to target. This was a more refined targeting approach compared to churn risk alone.

Gien the research that has been made and the insights obtained, many MNOs have realised that "savable value" is a an important factor  in optimising resources. This is an aggregated metric based on save probability and customer lifetime value. This approach focuses on intervening only on custmers that would only be influenced by the campaign, also known as Persuadables.