Self-Service Visions

Almost a year ago, I wrote an article at Mobitopia about how mobile network operators should offer customer self-service in order to reduce their costs and, frankly, make my life easier.

Now, I don’t want to gloat, but it seems that those laggards fine folks over at McKinsey & Co have cottoned on to this as well (free reg. reqd.). In fact, they make the case that operator margins are so low now, that they can’t afford not to (sigh) 'e-enable' themselves (emphasis mine):

To reduce costs and simultaneously improve service, these companies must persuade their customers to move to far more cost-efficient automated channels—the Web, automated telephone systems, or wireless transactions—and streamline their internal sales and support operations. If they don’t, they will not be profitable in the years ahead.

Even better than that, they’ve actually prepared some numbers to back up my intuition about how it would save money:

A typical call-center transaction costs $8 to $10; the same transaction online costs $0.15 to $0.80. Printed bills cost four times as much as e-bills…