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How Zain Jordan is building exceptional customer experience
The opinions expressed within this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of TM Forum.
As technology is becoming more advanced, telecom businesses always strive to stay ahead of the game by providing superior network performance and Customer Experience (CX). One of the ways this is achieved is through the use of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) – a sophisticated technique that analyzes and ‘inspects’ network packets – and its taxonomy through the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standards. This article examines the significance, benefits, and outcomes of DPI and IAB implementation in the B2C industry.
The first step towards performing DPI is to develop a classification scheme or hierarchy based on the analysis and categorization of network traffic, a process known as “taxonomy”. This can be done by leveraging an advertising agency, such as IAB, a company that establishes industry guidelines for the internet advertising sector, as they have defined a well-defined set of DPI taxonomy standards that consist of Tier-1 and Tier-2 level categories, with Tier-2 serving a sub-level to a parent category, to assist organizations in standardizing and organizing various types of packets and protocols.
Although the IAB’s taxonomy is largely focused towards advertising, content filtering company Web shrinker has introduced several new categories, including ‘Social Networking’, to better serve a wider range of use cases, adding up to a total of 404 categories. These categories can be leveraged to gain insights into customer behavior by aggregating the information into customer interests. This data is particularly useful for B2C marketing, as it will potentially boost revenueand improve CX through different ways, such as:
● Personalized services. Tailoring services according to customers’ interests improves customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as drive revenue growth through upselling. For example, if a telecom customer has a strong interest in ‘Streaming Media’, they may be recommended a bundle with higher bandwidth.
● Understanding the market. By analyzing customer interests, organizations can adapt their strategy to better meet customer demands, setting them apart from competition.
● Predictive analytics. Data science models can be used to detect trends and predict patterns in customer behavior. This recommends choices about network management, resource allocation, and customer retention efforts.
● Targeted advertisement and offers. By performing customer segmentation based on customer behavior and interests, personalized advertising and promotional campaigns can be created in order to reach the relevant audience, improving customer engagement.
There are several approaches towards employing said standards, such as a scoring system that evaluates the likelihood a network packet belongs to a specific type of traffic. This helps make informed decisions in assigning categories according to a certain threshold.
But why IAB, not other associations? There are several reasons why telecom companies choose this specific standard:
● Industry adoption. IAB is widely recognized and accepted in the advertisement industry, meaning that it can be relied on in terms of accuracy and trustworthiness.
● Updated content. Information is up-to-date, keeping up with the latest trends, ensuring consistency and relevancy.
● Inclusive. Their taxonomy standards are compatible with all sorts of traffic, including video and audio. Also, their framework supports more than 100 languages, making it compatible internationally.
● Flexibility. The API is designed to be adaptable, allowing for custom rules for specific use cases.
● Organized and availability of categories. Not only is it a hierarchal system consisting of top level and sublevel categories, but it also has more than 400 categories, allowing more choices.
● Authenticity. Since the API is dependent on a confident score when classifying web pages, it will classify a page as ‘Uncategorized’ if the system is unable to confidently assign an appropriate category (instead of an arbitrary category).
● Efficient processing speed. The API offers a rapid processing time, with 200ms if the domain has been classified, and 10s if not. However, it is important to note that the API is primarily designed for web pages, not mobile applications. Therefore, before data goes through the API, the system is designed to verify a host name to ensure that it is in fact a web page, but what happens if it detects a service name instead?
Mobile applications have become an integral part in our day-to-day life, so it is crucial to be able to categorize service names as well. This can simply be done through the App Store or Google Store categorization schemes as they provide a similar taxonomy to IAB.
In today’s fast-paced ever-evolving technological landscape, telcos must ensure their ongoing effort in order to stay at the forefront of the industry. As technology continues to advance day by day and competition is growing, it is important to continue utilizing cutting-edge technologies and calculated methodologies, such as DPI, to enhance CX and customer retention, hence staying ahead of the curve.
