What Are The Main Challenges Of The Telecom Industry In 2022?

The Telecom Industry has gained stability after the COVID crisis but still, it is facing some challenges that need to be addressed and resolved. These are the all-important challenges that the industry is facing and it is causing its growth to be hampered, which is why they need to be resolved immediately. What are those problems? Let’s find out by taking a closer look at the main challenges faced by the telecom industry in 2022:

The Need For Quick & Omnichannel Customer Support

Since the number of customers is increasing with every passing day, so do the customer requests. Most telcos from around the world receive millions of customer requests on a daily basis and this number is growing with every passing day. Since customers don’t prefer going to physical stores in order to resolve a problem, they want to receive quick and empathetic assistance from someone who can understand their problem. 

Providing omnichannel support with immediacy is getting more important than ever and ignoring these needs of customers can annoy the customers and this is something that a company wouldn’t want. Providing quick and empathetic solutions to the customer is the key to maintaining a long-term relationship with the customers. 

Handling Complex Processes

Nowadays it is not surprising to find a network provider having millions of subscribers with a variety of products to offer but with these comes complexity. Operational tasks have become so complex and since customers don’t like to visit the physical stores, face-to-face assistance is not an option. So, this has led to even simple tasks such as service confirmation, invoices for purchases such as online Solitaire, payments, etc are becoming complex because all of these have to be done remotely.

For telcos, handling complex operations require more resources, more tools, and more manpower, all of which increase the financial burden. Along with this, the consumers are so impatient nowadays that they want everything to be super fast and super quick. Customers aren’t ready to tolerate any sort of delay in the operational processes and it is time for telcos to address these problems.

Remote Working

Since the work of the telecom industry is related to computers and technology mostly, employees now prefer to remotely work if possible because in that way it is easier for the employees to maintain work-life balance and also to enjoy an occasional game of Klondike Solitaire. Plus, during the COVID crisis and after that, many companies now keep the workforce low in their offices.

So, this remote working is also becoming a challenge for the telecom industry, although it has been resolved to a greater extent and there are only a handful of employees that are working remotely, it can be tackled easily by using technology that is manageable from the cloud but this technology should be easy to implement and it shouldn’t cause problems for the employees.

Network Security

Ensuring network security is also another challenge for major telecom operators all over the world. The emergence of new technologies has made it mandatory for telcos to tighten their network security because new technologies bring new threats to the security of networks and associated applications. Companies that have employees working remotely and customers asking for remote assistance are more prone to such threats.

If a telecom operator is careless in this regard and does not take the security of the network seriously then it will cause huge problems for that operation. To improve security, telcos will have to make different operational and technical upgrades that will ensure that the system & network security is strong enough to prevent any security breach.

Leveraging Over-The-Top Services

The smartphone revolution and the internet becoming popular has led to a lot of OTT or Over-The-Top applications becoming popular. This includes apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, Skype, Instagram, and other such apps that have completely changed the way messaging & calling services are provided. 

These applications have almost reduced the charges required for messaging and calling services down to zero and they are luring the traffic away from telecommunication companies all over the world. These OTT apps and services have hurt the business and profits of telecom companies so much in the past few years that they had to develop new strategies in order to tackle them. 

These OTT apps and services have even forced many telcos from different parts of the world to terminate roaming charges as they have almost knocked many telcos out of business by seriously hurting their calls & SMS revenues.

For telcos, it used to be a problem but now, implementation of OTT services such as WhatsApp in customer service strategy is a priority and not a debate. The main challenge for telcos is to provide the best services to customers as fast as possible and this also includes the addition of OTT apps and services to deliver the best customer experience.

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