CMO Council Launches Major Campaign to Address Subscriber Complexity in Global Communications Markets

Initiative and Industry Survey Explore Issues and Opportunities for Service Providers and Cable/Satellite System Operators to Handle Increasing Challenges of Change and Choice

(Palo Alto, CA - March 23, 2011)

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council announced a major new thought leadership initiative to examine the extent and effects of a demanding new world of subscriber complexity and choice in today’s communications services market.  The new global program will profile and benchmark where and how companies are experiencing and addressing diverse needs, preferences, and behavior patterns across a multiplicity of device types, plans, and pricing options in the complex market for telecommunications, wireless, and digital media services.

The new initiative: “Bringing Dexterity to Subscriber Complexity: Managing the Challenge of Change and Choice in Communications and Media Markets,” is a multi-channel thought leadership program undertaken by the CMO Council and its Customer Experience Board and sponsored by Openet (www.openet.com)  that examines how senior marketers, line of business leaders, and technology professionals can get a better handle on today’s dynamic landscape of convergence and subscriber expectations.  The initiative looks at new practices in customer interaction and engagement, subscriber data management, and alternative service packaging and pricing.

Initial information on the initiative and a new whitepaper are available on the program microsite site at www.subscribercomplexity.org.  The microsite also features initial leadership committee members, supporting facts, articles, content, and other resources.

“With more than five billion global subscribers, the communications market is a huge opportunity for those who can effectively engage and retain customers amidst exploding expectations and new disruptive competitors,” commented Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council.  “Communications providers must innovate and improve how they identify and address diverse customer needs, create more compelling and individualized subscriber experiences, and market and deliver new services and payment options.”   

Bringing Dexterity to Subscriber Complexity is reaching out to senior marketers and technology leaders around the world on a qualitative and quantitative level to analyze and highlight the incidence of complicating factors and the industry requirements for improved processes and systems to enable cost-efficient and rapid delivery of new devices, apps, programs, services and packages to address every market segment.

The CMO Council launched its Subscriber Sense-Ability Audit Questionnaire, a landmark industry survey of communications marketing and IT professionals to determine the forces and factors that are contributing to operator aggravation and the best practices to address the issues head-on.  In addition to the global survey, the CMO Council is conducting strategic discussions with a leadership committee of senior marketers and other executives at many of the world’s prominent operators that are involved in insights and innovation around the customer experience to gather critical insights and best practices.

A new CMO Council whitepaper: Making Sense of Subscriber Complexity: The Need to Get a Handle on Chance and Choice in Global Communications Markets, is available for free download from the program site atwww.subscribercomplexity.org/xxx.  The whitepaper outlines the causes and implications of subscriber complexity, supported by third-party facts and stats, including:

In India alone, more than 20 million cell phone accounts are opened every month, accounting for nearly 600 million mobile users in the country.  That number is expected to explode to more than one billion by 2013.  (Informa)Annual industry churn rates average between 10 and 67 percent  (Database Marketing Institute)Forty percent of consumers who highly value telecom customer service said they would purchase from another merchant based on a poor customer service experience (Jupiter Research)96 percent of customers who put forth high effort to resolve their issues are more disloyal (CMO Council Customer Experience Board)Roughly 75 percent of subscribers signing up with a new wireless carrier every year are coming from another wireless provider and hence are already churners (Database Marketing Institute)

In addition to the Council, other CMO Council strategic interest groups will also participate in the subscriber complexity initiative. These groups include the Customer Experience Board, the Forum to Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME), and strategic media and organizational partners, which combined serve a vibrant global ecosystem of communications service providers and cable and satellite operators.

About the CMO Council

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide range of global industries. The CMO Council's 5,500 members control more than $200 billion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide. In total, the CMO Council and its strategic interest communities include over 12,000 global executives across 100 countries in multiple industries, segments and markets. Regional chapters and advisory boards are active in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The Council's strategic interest groups include the Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE), Marketing Supply Chain Institute, Customer Experience Board, LoyaltyLeaders.org, Online Marketing Performance Institute, and the Forum to Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME). www.cmocouncil.org