FANGs poised to poach mobile customers according to report

These are among the findings revealed in a survey carried out on behalf of mobile technology company Telness Tech, which has uncovered a massive perception gap between how innovative telcos think they are in comparison to how consumers view them.

The survey – carried out for the cloud-based telco solutions provider -interviewed 1000 UK consumers and 500 French and German consumers respectively as well as 200 business decision makers at telecoms companies across Europe in July this year.

On average, each telco interviewed planned to spend £16m on tech and service development over the next three years. Most (97%) planned to make an immediate investment in their backend, with a third of the money spent on upgrading this infrastructure and another third funneled into customer service.

Investing in innovation was less of priority with only 16% of telecoms decision makers recognising a need for the industry to be more innovative. Most (97%) appeared confident in their organisation’s ability to stay competitive in the next 12 to 18 months.

Yet the views of telcos are in stark contrast with those of their consumers who think that the telecom industry lags behind other sectors such as finance and automotive in terms of innovation.

This lack of innovation isn’t encouraging loyalty: two-thirds (64%) of customers added that they are planning to leave their mobile phone provider, with almost half (49%) of consumers stating they would switch to a brand like Amazon or Facebook if they could.

Almost 60% of customers stated that their chief reason for switching was to secure a better deal.

Telness Tech CCO Sara Rasmussen claimed it was clear from the research that traditional telcos have misplaced confidence in their level of innovation and ability to retain their customers.

Rasmussen added that investing in cloud-based platforms would enable telcos to innovate and constantly develop and deliver new services and pricing models.

“Telcos need to do a better job getting across to consumers the level of innovation they undertake, how much they are investing in their technology and what they plan to deliver by way of new products and services,” she said.