How Vodafone reduced churn and gained 15 points in NPS in 4 steps

Written by their partner of 25 years.

The sudden vibration almost makes me spill my steaming coffee. I usually don’t get calls in the morning.

As I nod my head to look at the screen, I notice it’s a push message. It mentions exclusive tickets to a concert in Amsterdam. As I open the Vodafone app to check it out, a message reminds me that my phone subscription is almost due.

In the next two minutes, I get my tickets and extend my Vodafone subscription for two years before sliding the phone back into my pocket. My coffee is still piping hot.

Service is everything: from trend to triumph 

In the highly competitive global telecom market, Vodafone knows that retaining customers has become more challenging than ever. Catering to the unique desires of every customer requires a personalized approach.

To underline these developments, younger consumers – those under the age of 35 – are more prone to switch operators, with 58% declaring their willingness to make a change. In contrast, seniors – those aged 55 and older – exhibit greater loyalty, with 67% preferring to stay with their current supplier. While this may appear obvious, it underscores the need for providers to cater to the preferences of different age groups (Oliver Wyman, 2023). 

As Vodafone’s trusted development partner since 1999, we’ve gained 25 years of unique insights and first-hand experience of how Vodafone has managed to stay competitive and plans to remain so in the future. 

We delved into the archive and read back 25 years of documents to explain how Vodafone has been able to maintain a reputation and position as a market leader in Telecom. 

Digging through old quotes, we were proudly reminded of just how much innovation we’ve been a part of with Vodafone. Vodafone and Triple partnered up as early as 2008 to bring the first video live streams to Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson.

Today, Vodafone has joined forces with internet provider Ziggo in the Netherlands and celebrates the launch of a single app to combine services, customer experience, and commerce. 

Over the years, the company has grown from “we need an app because it’s the trend right now” back in 2012, to a self-service customer experience platform that tackles first-time-fixes, promotes NPS, and reduces churn. 

Here’s how they did it in four strategic steps. 

 

Step 1: “We need an app”

In the early stages, VodafoneZiggo recognized the need for a mobile app, primarily because competitors were already offering one. This initial step was crucial in maintaining competitive parity and providing customers with a basic tool for managing their accounts and services. 

However, having an app is not a business case. Over time, VodafoneZiggo connected customer insights with business KPI to create a robust platform that would evolve with customer needs and market trends. The app’s primary purpose was to enhance customer interaction and provide a seamless user experience. 

With an early focus on retention, Vodafone was always aware that attracting a new customer can cost up to six or seven times more than retaining an existing one. Additionally, the likelihood of selling to a repeat customer is 70%, whereas the likelihood of a first-time customer buying from a company is just between 5% and 20% (John Addessi, 2023) 

Quickly after launching an app “just to have an app” back in 2012, a quote was sent out by Triple in 2013 dubbed “The ultimate self-care app”. To put this in perspective: back in 2013, the world was enjoying the iPhone 5, and Blackberry was still a thing.

Step 2: Overloaded call centers 

One of the significant challenges VodafoneZiggo faced was the overloading of their call centers. This led to long wait times and frustrated customers, resulting in lower first-time-fix percentages and more call escalations. 

The solution was to integrate self-service capabilities into the app, allowing customers to handle routine tasks on their own. The decision to empower the customer was an early insight by Vodafone, and it speaks volumes of their dedication to service and customer experience that they quickly dubbed the project “Customer Experience Platform. 

This strategic move not only improved customer satisfaction but also reduced the strain on call centers. Customers could now easily manage their subscriptions, troubleshoot issues, and get answers to their questions without needing to speak to a representative.

Step 3: Customers expect more self-service 

As customer expectations evolved, they began to demand more control over their services. VodafoneZiggo responded by continuously enhancing the app with new features that allowed for greater self-service. 

This included functionalities like plan adjustments, real-time usage tracking, and personalized recommendations. By meeting these evolving needs, VodafoneZiggo ensured that customers felt empowered and satisfied, which significantly reduced the likelihood of churn. 

Meeting these evolving customer needs invoked a unique way of building and improving user flows in the app. This was a watershed moment and something we’re proud to be a part of: providing a single platform for separate teams to build on. The significance of this is evident when looking at the way most Telecom companies structure their IT.

In most other Telecom companies, customer experience teams analyze customer feedback and draw out app improvements that get sent over to IT (or a third party) for development. The result is a slow and fragmented process where the creation of a UI or UX improvement by one team ends up on the backlog of another. To be more focused and efficient, Vodafone organizes teams they call “streams” entirely around features and user flow. 

You read about my own experience as a Vodafone customer buying tickets and extending my subscription in one go. This is a use case that was designed, analyzed, and iterated upon by a dedicated team able to build and ship parallel to many other teams. 

Working side by side in separate streams, Vodafone and Triple can simultaneously improve multiple parts of the app to benefit customer experience.

Step 4: The app as the main channel to introduce new products and services 

With the app becoming the primary channel for customer interactions, VodafoneZiggo saw an opportunity to leverage it for introducing products and services that drive revenue and retention.

Of course, having an app allows Vodafone to gather and analyze tons of customer data. To act on this data, it is crucial to have a system that can draw from many different sources and combine this into a single customer data platform. Using it, Vodafone can personalize customer experience with services adjacent to the core product offering. They introduced exclusive deals, concert tickets, and other unique experiences through the app.

This approach not only provided added value to customers but also kept the app relevant and engaging. This is key, because Vodafone knows like no other company that phone subscriptions will soon all have unlimited data. It means that the app as the destination to check out your data bundle and usage will soon be gone.  

The question that is continuously on our minds is: How will our app stay relevant in the future? 

As you may expect, personalization plays a key role. At Triple, we always emphasize the need to not just collect data but to ask which data sources are most crucial to understanding individual customer preferences at scale. 

By understanding individual customer preferences, VodafoneZiggo can offer tailored recommendations and promotions, making the app an essential tool for both customer retention and revenue growth.

Step 5: Consolidating multiple app channels into one CX experience 

Now technically there's a step 5, but we can't share results. That's only because this project has just launched and the results aren't in yet.

 

VodafoneZiggo’s latest feat underlines its persistent focus on customer experience and secures its relevance for the future:  

They’ve merged the separate Ziggo (internet provider) and Vodafone (telecom) apps into a single app.

 

There's no doubt that this makes the new app the long-term destination for recurring visits to manage all products, use and buy services, and benefit from customer loyalty programs.

Can these insights benefit your company?

VodafoneZiggo’s strategic approach, supported by Triple’s expertise, resulted in impressive improvements.

 

To summarize the key insights from this article:

• Having an app is not a business case
  
  
• Connecting customer insights with business KPIs is the most important driver of development for the app
  
  
• Empowering the customer with integrated self-service capabilities leads to increased customer experience
  
  
• Empowering customers by meeting their evolving needs are a key driver for reduced churn 
  
  
• Making the app the primary channel for introducing new products and services is a key driver for revenue and retention
  
  
• Using the app to offer exclusive deals and experiences, keep it relevant and engaging as traditional phone subscription models change
  
  
• One comprehensive app to manage all services and engage with customer loyalty programs positions the app as a long-term tool for customer interaction

Among other achievements, the company saw:

• + 15 points in their Net Promoter Score
• A 10x increase in top-ups via the app
• A -25% call deflection in call centers
• 1M+ app downloads
• A 4.2/5-star app store rating
• Higher engagement rates throughout the app. 

These achievements have been, and continue to be, key drivers of lowering churn and improving top-line revenue for VodafoneZiggo.