Hitting the right note with mobile music
Oren Glanz, CEO of Olista, the pioneer of Service Adoption Management (SAM), looks at the future for mobile music and what operators need to consider to ensure they don’t get left behind
Music fans have always been proud of their collections and where in the past they used to compare their massive vinyl collections in meters, gigabytes are now a better means of comparison. Statistics from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s 2007 Digital Music Report demonstrate this, showing an estimated $2 billion worth of music being sold online or through mobile phones in 2006, accounting for 10% of music sales. Strategy Analytics forecast for Western Europe shows that in 2006 there was almost a million active mobile music users and it continues by predicting that by 2010 this figure will have risen to 2 ½ million users, which has made mobile operators take note and place even more faith in the mobile delivery channel.
Usage and interest in mobile music is clearly exploding so how can operators ensure their subscribers become addicted to downloading music?
With so many devices on the market there is the potential for mobile music users to be quick to churn when a service/device doesn't live up to their expectations – very often with out contacting their operator. From a subscriber viewpoint accessing mobile music services leads them to encounter various technical, training, value and compatibility obstacles which can reduce the likelihood of them becoming a habitual user such as:
- Digital right management (DRM) creates major barriers within a music download service as the mechanism for DRM can vary between the complete separation of the music content from the DRM file to a lock on forwarding tracks. Another major issue is variances between handset models - certified Vs non certified operator handsets.
- Navigation concerned with music downloads tracking all aspects of subscribers' journey through to identifying valued content. Experience shows that methods of navigation have become confusing to subscribers causing them to quickly lose interest and abandon a service.
- Barriers to usage are also common relating to areas of handset and music service usage. Functions such as streaming and download are recognised as confusing and difficult to use, often leading to service misuse. Subscribers tend to struggle with how to search, locate, select and replay after they have downloaded a track, especially the mass market non-technical and inexperienced users.
This leads us to far simpler barriers but ones which are ultimately the largest barriers to subscribers becoming addicted to mobile music on their handset. Usability, training, interest and other user experience barriers are just as damaging as any of the previously mentioned issues. Mobile operators need to look at how they can ensure such customer problems are solved before they impact on the user experience.
So with so many barriers to the success of mobile music why use a mobile phone as a music delivery method and player when compared with other standalone players? The obvious argument is the need to only carry one device and the advantage mobile operators hold here is that consumers are already addicted to their devices and other services such as SMS. But how can operators change this device addiction into a mobile music addiction?
Simple – Mobile operators need to improve their subscribers' user experience when using mobile music services which in turn will drive satisfaction.
To do this mobile operators need to build an end to end view of their music service from all contributing systems and content. This is not as easy as first perceived as although common elements are contained within most music services many aspects on delivery, billing and content are unique to each operator which affects subscriber behavioural traits, usage patterns and other adoption barriers. The simplest way to achieve this is by approaching the problem with Service Adoption Management (SAM) tools.
SAM can provide mobile operators with a view where they will be able to identify each and every subscriber experience, identifying all technical and non-technical barriers even when all operational platforms and service management systems indicate all elements are fine.
Using these principals and availability of subscriber information (billing, CRM, customer care and network or platform services) it should also be possible to track other key adoption traits such as bill shock; social networking, campaign effectiveness and early service launch measurement.
Armed with this highly granular insight into virtually any aspect of usage, and the ability to identify and remedy usage barriers, even those which have never before arisen, managers in charge of mobile music marketing and content can make more informed decisions and better target offerings and campaigns. By providing deep real time visibility into subscribers' interactions with mobile music it is possible to stimulate customer loyalty and increase mobile music usage and generate meaningful profits.
For example if a customer was seen to try and fail to download a song to their mobile, SAM could provide marketing departments with this information and mobile operators could take a number of actions to make sure the user will be able to use the service successfully . This can be achieved as the operator has a clear picture of exactly where the user is in the adoption process and can rectify the issue by re-sending the song to the user for free and then also encouraging them to take the next step in adoption of mobile data service by offering them the opportunity to download a free music video. By resolving barriers and encouraging usage of the service for free the user will see how simple the service is and be encouraged to become a repeat customer as well as taking the next step and trying another new service.
This will be measurable by the increase in number of music tracks downloaded, the growth of active users, reduction of streaming terminated sessions, reduction of DRM related problems or in the number of music related calls received by customer care.
With consideration to user satisfaction and an industry moving in the same direction, the road should be clear for mobile operators to succeed in reaching the mass market with mobile music.
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