Mobile operators run the risk of losing a significant proportion of their prepaid subscribers to their competitors if they fail to offer number choice and other personalised services. That’s the conclusion of a recent study carried out by Evolving Systems, which surveyed 500 prepaid mobile phone subscribers in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The study found that at least 35 per cent of respondents in each country, and significantly more (44 per cent) in France and Germany, would consider switching to another service provider if it could offer them the ability to select a number and their current provider could not. The main reason respondents gave for wanting to choose a number was to make it easier to remember, and 32 per cent or more of respondents in each country said they would be prepared to pay for the privilege of being able to  choose a number.

The survey also found that at least half of respondents in all of these countries, rising to 55 per cen in France and 62 per cent in Italy and Spain, would consider switching to another provider if it was able to offer a range of personalised services and their current provider was not. The survey asked respondents about their interest in, and concerns about, a range of personalised services, including loyalty schemes and “two-sided” business models, such as sponsored and advertising-supported services.

“Leading operators in the surveyed countries already have blended churn rates of well over 30 per cent a year, a number that could get worse if they fail to offer their customers number choice and other personalised services and a competitor does,” says Stuart Cochran, chief technology officer at Evolving Systems. “The challenge for operators is how they engage effectively with subscribers in order to drive up loyalty levels. Historically, this has been difficult. Typically, operators have had little, if any, information about a large proportion of their customer base, prepaid users. As as result, operators are forced to look at usage trends and patterns of behaviour to infer, sometimes inaccurately, the type of customer they are dealing with.”

Cochran adds that Evolving Systems’ Dynamic SIM Allocation (DSA) solution can help overcome this challenge by allowing customers to personalise their services when they use a mobile device for the first time, including choosing their number and tariff, enabling operators to create a dialogue with prepaid users.

“Critically, the dialogue presents an ideal opportunity to build a better understanding of customers,” says Cochran. “The same device-based dialogue that supports number choice can also be used to sign up new customers to reward or loyalty programmes, or to offer new value-added services. Through this, operators can strengthen the customer relationship, build loyalty and reduce the potential for churn revealed by our survey results.”