- KPIs are essential for steering daily operations.
- Curiosity, analytical skills, and creativity are key traits in CVM.
- Alignment through regular KPI tracking keeps everyone focused.
- Customer loyalty programs are crucial in prepaid dominant markets.
- Aim to exceed industry benchmarks for CVM revenue contribution.
- Failures are learning opportunities, not setbacks.
- Focus efforts on high-value customers for maximum impact.
- Automation can drastically improve efficiency and output.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00:01] Egidijus: Everybody are talking about revenue retention, etc. but what’s your secret in aligning everybody?
[00:00:06:16] Elchin: It is very important to have a couple of certain KPIs to steer daily, weekly and monthly basis. Without failures, you cannot move forward because especially in CVM, you have to have a very good appetite for failures.
[00:00:24:00] Exacaster: Welcome to CVM stories, the podcast on customer value management. Together we explore how companies can be more successful and the customers happier through the use of latest customer value management techniques. Learn key commercial and analytical insights from telecoms, retail, finance and other industries that drive CVM forward today.
[00:00:43:16] Egidijus: I welcome Elchin Gulmammadov, Group Marketing Director at Azerconnect Group. Elchin is a visionary marketer with results driven mindset and has over 15 years experience in telecom marketing. Together, we will explore his extensive experience across three telco companies and discuss how group level management can improve CVM.
[00:01:12:02] Egidijus: Hi Elchin. Thank you for joining us today.
[00:01:17:11] Elchin: Thanks for having me.
[00:01:19:20] Egidijus: Uh, so, uh, Elchin, you are acting as a group marketing director in Azerconnect. It seems that over those 15 years in various marketing areas in telco, you have done it all. You have seen it all. And, uh, today I want to ask you, what keeps you still motivated, you know, to work in this industry? Industry? To work in marketing?
[00:01:45:16] Elchin: Yes. Uh, very good question. Uh, actually, I moved to the group marketing group a couple of months ago, and in the before that, I keep, uh, entity level, uh, position. And the the question is what motivates me in that role? Because, uh, from the group, the view is a bit different. And the meaning currently we are, uh, serving, uh, more than, uh, ten brands in Azerbaijan and the, the, the serving one brand is a one thing and serving more than ten brands than other thing. Meaning you you you have lots of data. You see totally different trend compared to one entity. Uh, lots of interesting, interesting things happening around us. And, uh, all this really keeping me motivated in this role.
[00:02:45:02] Egidijus: Okay, we will come back to the follow up question about this in a couple of seconds. But before we we dwell. There. Um, could you tell us a bit of your story? You know, how did you end up in telco industry?
[00:03:00:13] Elchin: It’s actually I started, uh, 15 years ago and, uh, I tested, uh, especially I, I tested different industries, including consulting, uh, retail, etc. and at the end I saw that telco is very interesting and very dynamic, uh, technology friendly, etc. and in that time it grabbed my attention. And uh, in that time, I clearly know that that’s the industry. I can, uh, spend my entire life in this, uh, field and from that time I started also inside the telco. I started to test different role. I started as a business intelligence specialist, and then I moved to the geo marketing and then I moved to the brand. The purpose and aim was in that time was to understand which one is more relevant to me. The Finally, I found customer loyalty and retention, uh, division and the role and responsibility that I perceive. It’s more, uh, relevant to my, uh, DNA. And from that time I spent my entire last, uh, almost, uh, 12 years, uh, for this, uh, CVM things. And here in Azerbaijan, uh, there is three main operators, and, uh, I almost worked all of them. Now, I, uh, continue to my, uh, continue my works, uh, at a group level.
[00:04:48:01] Egidijus: As I said, you have done it all and seen it all.
[00:04:51:10] Elchin: Yes, yes. I mean, all this, uh, all this experience. Give me to understand the customers very well, because the market is fragmented. On one side, you see, one operator has a more price sensitive segment. And from the from there you learn their behaviors. And another, uh, operator perceive more, uh, quality brand. And from there, uh, I learned, uh, that experience. And then I combine all of them. And the at the end, I see, uh, the patterns, behaviors and the based on this, we as a team, we can come up with more suitable and relevant, uh, relevant solutions that, uh, entirely fit that the customer expectations. That’s very high level view on my journey.
[00:05:48:03] Egidijus: And you mentioned a really important, interesting thing you said I found my customer value management DNA. You know, so how would you define what is a great customer value manager. What what qualities are you looking at? Uh, people, you know, when you are searching for, you know, customer value management.
[00:06:09:03] Elchin: This is the wonderful question. Uh, the first I think, uh, the the first thing I always looking for that candidate is curiosity, because, I mean, you know this subject better if you search Google. I mean, there’s very limited knowledge right on the CVM around CVM, etc. the curiosity, meaning whether the person is capable, uh, to look for a ways to improve, uh, the work they did, uh, they are trying to do, etc.. Uh, the first curiosity and then, uh, analytical, uh, mindset and the third creativity, because, uh, currently one of the key challenges for us to reach our customers and on one side is the content. I mean, what we are trying to give the customers. And another important thing, really important thing is what’s the communication message? I mean, it requires more copywriting skills, etc.. And uh, I still remember, uh, early my career, I attended one of the event, uh, where the top executives around the globe, especially telco executives, joined that event, and one guy from the union said that just investing in copywriting, uh, we improve more than 40% on the response rate. I mean, so that’s the, uh, I mean, that’s the huge, uh, results. Uh, I mean, uh, all in all, curiosity, if you summarize curiosity, analytical mindset and also, uh, creative ways to approach the case, uh, this, uh, are the keys, uh, for, for this, uh, person and especially for this role.
[00:08:05:08] Egidijus: Okay. Uh, okay. Uh, we will, uh, you know, we will take it for granted. We’ll write it. And, uh, Stephen, walk the three qualities.
[00:08:15:13] Elchin: Yeah. Happy to hear.
[00:08:18:15] Egidijus: Uh, now, uh, let’s move to the main theme of, of the podcast today is, uh, when where we will discuss how a group level management can improve customer value management through the, let’s say, group companies. As you might, uh, have seen, all the roles from customer value management to marketing director in a single company. Now on to, uh, the group marketing director. How do you see your role right now? Uh, how can it empower company level customer value managers? Uh, what? Basically, what is your purpose right now?
[00:09:03:15] Elchin: Yes. Uh, actually, as a group, uh, marketing director, I’m responsible for the five streams. And the one stream is an AI, artificial artificial intelligence. And we are trying to, uh, look for a solutions which is more relevant to the communication, CVM, etc. another one gross marketing and the in this stream especially we are uh, our main KPI is the customer growth and also revenue growth because everything starts from the customers. And the third stream is a communication. I’m, uh, responsible for managing brands, especially communication sites, and the first one is about personalized marketing, meaning customer value management, uh, including. And the fifth one, the final one about customer insights, including market research, business intelligence. That’s how our, uh, group marketing structure, uh, coming to, uh, potential. Coming to the main question, what’s our, uh, main aim here? And of course, since we are, uh, commercial company, that revenue comes the first and we are very rare brands, uh, especially, uh, I mean, in the neighbor countries or, uh, maybe around the, the globe. We are growing a double digit. I mean, it’s the significant, uh, you can find very rare companies, telcos, telco brands that grow double digit, uh, especially in nowadays. And the revenue is our, uh, number one, uh. Objective goal. And everyone keep a close eye on this. And then, of course, uh, customer growth and market share. And we are, uh, daily tracking our daily active customers. This is one of the key KPIs for, for for our customer value management team. Because at the end, these customers are, uh, these customers bring their money. So based on the revenue, the result I always tell to my team revenue is the result We we close, uh, we keep our eyes very closely to the key inputs because revenue is outputs. Inputs means, uh, customers. So that’s why we are trying to satisfy customers, uh, in every way. Uh, we have in every chance we get.
[00:11:41:21] Egidijus: So, uh. Yeah. What is your secret sauce on aligning company around that customer? You know, because it’s like everybody are talking about revenue retention, etc., etc., but the customer is the input or the source, you know. So what’s your secret in aligning everybody?
[00:12:00:10] Elchin: Yes. Actually, it is very important to have a couple of certain KPIs to steer daily, weekly and monthly basis. So in that sense, we are of course, active 30, active 90, uh, also daily active customers and are the key KPIs. And the especially when you look our, uh, market, if you, uh, take a macro look and you will see, uh, the market, the prepay dominant market. And more than 85% are customers sitting on a prepaid lines. And this is this is the one challenge for us because, uh, based on the remaining 50%, we believe that it is much easier to handle those customers compared to prepaid. These customers are very price sensitive customers and it is nothing to them to switch to another brand. I mean, there is almost no cost. So that’s why I always, uh, more inclined to say, especially in that industry in that field where switching costs is almost zero. Uh, it is important to have a very good loyalty program. So coming back to your question, what’s the magic, uh, behind aligning all this and another, uh, apart from the prepaid, another challenge for us, uh, especially in this market, uh, more than 30% of the customers are using multiple lines, meaning multiple users. So the prepaid is requires, uh, totally, uh, totally new, uh, approach. We have to approach this, uh, you have to apply, uh, new and special approach to prepay and also multiple, uh, multi-sim users, uh, here, uh, play a significant role. Why? Let’s say especially in, uh, in context of CVM in one brand, let’s say you have two mobile brands, right? And you are, uh, you are tracking, uh, daily, hourly, all the KPIs, uh, activities, etc..
[00:14:27:12] Elchin: And if you approach to one customer, one operator base and you suddenly see some drop in other operator base. So that’s the environment currently we are living in and the to manage all this two things to manage and to give a key focus on the customers. And uh, especially I mean, we are working we have uh the one challenge to keep enough attention from team, and another challenge to keep, to keep enough attention from the management and the that we we set a culture. Everyone, everyone, every single person, team member in our team should know understand the numbers on daily basis. So sometimes you know in the corridor, every opportunity I can approach to the team, ask some questions. I mean, what was our, uh, active base yesterday, revenue, etc.? I mean, everyone should be prepared for such such type of questions. The another one, uh, key KPIs. Since we define a couple of key KPIs, we are steering more, um, attentively and we are challenged. Let’s say if we see slight drop on yesterday number the direct mail. Everyone expect direct mail from me. What’s the drivers. Why we see drop. Is it, uh, long term. Is it a short term. I mean is there any event etc.? I mean, this type of approach is very important, uh, to steer and to somehow, uh, you know, improve, uh, these things. I mean, folks, uh, if you say, what’s the name of these things keeping, uh, uh, team focus, keeping management focus, uh, on, uh, customers and what matters. So that’s the answer.
[00:16:37:12] Egidijus: So. So do your team members often receive the the question from you? So, uh, what are the numbers yesterday? What were the the numbers yesterday?
[00:16:47:08] Elchin: It was just one thing I learned, uh, from the children. And in the conversation, I have a couple of, uh, kids, and in one, one conversation, you see lots of questions and answers in kids comment. Since we, uh, grow up and share of the question in our talk, in our speech decrease and I still believe power of, uh, asking question and the the important thing, especially everywhere, including customer value management. Do we asking the right questions from ourselves? I mean, if the answer is yes, then you are doing a brilliant job so that I always challenge the team. Don’t ask this question from me, because in that time, uh, our, uh, working style called reactive, I don’t want to work in this format. Please, if you see, uh, earlier in the morning time, just, uh, write me email with a bullet points. Explain, uh, a couple of things that, you know, really drive that, Rob or maybe gross. So we are not always, uh, asking the question. When we see the rope, we are asking question, uh, when we see the up as well.
[00:18:18:15] Egidijus: Okay, so it seems like that you are really, really on top on, uh, all KPIs. You don’t have many KPIs, but the ones that you have, you are on top with, uh, very small latency on deltas and basically kind of your Altium is always aligned. Yeah. Yes.
[00:18:37:11] Elchin: You should also I believe, uh, one thing, one school believes that if you have a more KPIs, you can contribute, you can improve, etc.. Another school says that please keep a minimum KPIs that you know everyone can focus on and improve that one. I more inclined to the second school, I always, uh, I mean personally for me and also for my team, uh, we are keeping we are putting maximum three KPIs, uh, to the team, to the division, to the streams so that we, I personally see lots of values there.
[00:19:21:02] Egidijus: And now talking about, let’s say, the impact and the deltas that you expect that your customer value management team would provide. You know, so kind of what is your expectation that CVM role, how much uh, deltas will it provide for the company in terms of like revenue in terms of retention?
[00:19:42:12] Elchin: Yes. Uh, actually the global benchmark, especially share of severe, severe revenue in total revenue is around two and 3%. So we are always I personally challenge the team, uh, uh, to bring the revenue more than that benchmark level, because there is a very good one, very good book and the title end of the average, actually the two and 3% is average, and it’s the benchmark. Uh, so I believe that, you know, if you always look at the average, you will end up average business. So I challenge everyone to put to play with the edges and the, uh, the key challenge and key expectation from the team to double the benchmark. I mean, to bring more than five, 6%, uh, increment uh to each entity. So that’s the very high level expectation from me. And so far we are very much in line with our expectation. We are still, uh, on daily basis, weekly base and monthly base And also another challenge is uh, for team is uh, in last couple of years, uh, everyone, uh, every CVM, uh team, when you ask what’s your contribution, what’s, uh, the incremental value there, everyone come up with, uh, results compared to the control group? I mean, it’s a very nice thing. And especially starting from this year, I challenged the team. I don’t want only the result compared to the control group. I want the result very visible results on daily revenue. Meaning I push the team. Please plan everything properly so that we we we can see. And every everyone can see the management board. Everyone can very clearly and visibly see your contribution on daily number. So if you now if you open the dashboard CVM dashboard you can see I mean this type of the sinks. No flat because of, uh, CVM actions. Uh, one approach, one spike. So that’s the, uh, another layer we added starting from this here.
[00:22:26:17] Egidijus: Okay. This this sounds very, very challenging, you know, because, uh, like, measuring the impact against control group is already a challenge. You know, designing the control group, measuring, etc.. Uh, but, uh, saying, okay, now we need to make it visible, not against control group. Now, now that’s a real business challenge, you know, how did your team react to that? You know?
[00:22:53:16] Elchin: Yeah. I mean, of course it’s uh, it is the pure uh, compared to other challenge. It’s the pure challenge. Yeah, I, I completely agree, but to avoid I mean, sometime people can say yes, but it doesn’t mean really. Yes. So just to avoid all those etc. around this revenue contribution, we assign this challenge especially, you know, since we are, uh, we have a certain, uh, structure in our market. I mean, you can, uh, you can bring that value, um, incremental and visible value that everyone expect.
[00:23:41:11] Egidijus: So, um. Uh elchin. You said that you basically worked in all operators, uh, in your country. Uh, you know it all. You have seen it all. You have, uh, seen how different companies, uh, operate. You have seen how they apply different frameworks to manage, uh, customers. Now you are in a group level position. And how do you share the know how in the in the group, you know, uh, what are your practices here? How do you spread the know how?
[00:24:18:10] Elchin: This is another, uh, great question. Uh, actually, from each, uh, entity, from each business, I learn, uh, I learn a lot. And one of the, uh, personal things that I value a lot, uh, to, uh, to, to keep notes about the learnings because, uh, from time to time, we learn a lot of things working with the people, working with the company. And, uh, if you don’t structure this learnings, we we will definitely forget after a couple of years and, uh, later on, etc.. So, uh, I especially, I, uh, put all this, uh, notes down, all the learning, and one day, I believe one thing that, you know, uh, which everyone should publish, a one book about the learnings, that’s, uh, one of the, uh, my core value. So, uh, I sensitively approach to this learnings. Uh, we.
[00:25:29:13] Egidijus: We I’m sorry. Can can we expect your book uh, um, uh, the, you know, the big learnings.
[00:25:36:09] Elchin: Uh, my personal, uh, target, uh, is to publish this, um, in two years. And, uh, I’m currently working with a team on this, uh, stream as well. I mean, we are collecting, combining all these notes. It’s definitely, I mean.
[00:25:57:00] Egidijus: So put me in a waiting list, you know?
[00:26:02:11] Elchin: Yeah, it’s definitely, definitely. I will send one copy to you. And, uh, coming to the coming to that learnings, especially in the customer value management. Uh, this is the this is the idea that, you know, requires a lot of a B testing, etc.. And the we learn, we learn and we gather all know hows and we apply, uh, whatever, uh, we are working and currently we are also this is group level that this is the another very valuable ground for us, especially for senior people, because in one entity they can test, let’s say, a campaign, another on another entity they can test big campaign. And later on they compare results and then they share best practices and they continue with this. I mean, in one brand, all a B testing definitely will give a huge value to the team. If entities is, let’s say more than ten. It is another layer, another contribution that you know, brings to the team. And based on these three operators and based on these learnings and based on this journey, we learn a lot of things. And currently we are more comfortable, as I say, to, uh, visibly show all this revenue contribution and all this contribution subscriber side. Uh, definitely. It’s not easy. And, uh, we gather all this answers from that journey and from that, uh. Learning. And this is, uh, very wonderful ground ground for us to work, uh, in this role and in this, uh, to serve, uh, this entities with, uh, lots of lessons.
[00:28:06:23] Egidijus: And it sounds it sounds extremely exciting. You know, I would like to, to be a customer value manager where I can, where I can discuss with a ton more companies, you know. Uh, but besides and besides the, let’s say, the learning part, um, what technical enablers, uh, do you need to make sure that your group companies have so that they could grow fast so that they would have tools? Uh, you mentioned that you are working with AI enablement, with data enablement. So, uh, what are the key aspects here?
[00:28:46:03] Elchin: Yeah, especially stemming from the group role. I mean, two things are really mandatory, uh, from that standpoint. The first, we are allocating, uh, all these technical resources. And also we are, uh, defining and aligning strategies. I mean, these are, uh, very key things that we are we are supporting, uh, to the entities coming to the technical part. Uh, currently we are working with a SaaS company management tool and also all this, uh, sus environment are, uh, under our, uh, service. And the technically, we are very flexible and the technically this campaign management tool serve all these, uh, entities. And we are, uh, we are still comfortable, uh, to have this, uh, infrastructure. And on the other side, uh, data infrastructure also, uh, is very important because you have to feed your campaign management tool with a very, uh, quality data. We have a certain things in place in that area. And, uh, coming to the strategies, uh, more soft things. We. Because I touch this topic. Uh, uh, among the team in several other, uh, uh, places grounds and especially in CVM, it is very important to have very high level vision, because CVM itself requires lots of attention to the details without having high level vision. I mean, you can, uh, create a chaos easily. So it is important to have a very high level vision framework, what the team should uh, trying to achieve, etc..
[00:30:56:03] Elchin: If you combine all this, I mean strategic things, vision etc., framework and also technical capability. Uh, you can have, uh, very, uh, magic things. You can create very magic things. And the coming to the AI part. So we are especially nowadays we are heavily focused on this. Uh, why the question is why and what we are trying to achieve with this. Uh, in a couple of, uh, days, we will launch, uh, Personal Tariff Advisor that backed with, uh, AI and let’s say customers. Uh, this is one of the important question. If you deep dive churn reasons, especially in prepaid dominant market, one of the key reasons that, uh, we see very high importance, uh, among churn reasons is changed tariffs. Customers if customers change tariffs more than, let’s say five times uh, his uh, his churn score is high because, uh, based on the training, uh, time training window, we see, uh, these customers will definitely go to the churn. That there is a logical reason as well, because customer cannot find a place to sit and to use. Right. So that that’s why, uh, we prioritize, uh, tariff things, customers, I mean, we as a telco people, we know all tariffs, right? I mean, we are working with a numbers I mean, it is rates etc.
[00:32:39:21] Elchin: but we are always thinking about the average people. Do the average people, people know the what’s the suitable type for the customers? Of course not. But on the application we track all the historical information etc.. Right. So what, what requires from us to come up with that options. Let’s say, dear customer, from now on you can go to this section and you can find personal tariff recommendations there. I mean, it is the easy with the, uh, based on this usage and based on the customer location, I mean, based on some certain things, we come up with more tailored, uh, types, uh, to the customer. So that’s the one area that we are heavily working uh, on. And soon, uh, I think in two weeks time, uh, people, uh, will benefit from that, um, service and solution. On the other hand, especially in nowadays, one of the key challenge for us to, uh, I mean, reaching the customer is a one thing, right? To communicate and to, uh, build the build the communication and the build the to deliver the message. I mean, we are currently struggling to deliver the message to the customer with the right way. Uh, I will, I will.
[00:34:17:15] Egidijus: What is your definition of the right way?
[00:34:21:16] Elchin: I mean, it’s very important. And a couple of days ago, uh, one of my, uh, uh, neighbor called me and asked me one number. I mean, in a seconds, I share that number. After, uh, one hour, the neighbor called me and said that. Why you didn’t share that number? I’m still waiting the number from you, I see that I share. He see that I didn’t receive it. I ask, did you check the SMS or you? You sent the message through SMS. I expect through WhatsApp etc. I mean you see people think like this and in couple of I mean couple of years ago, I mean, SMS commonly used among everyone, right? Smartphone users, etc. in nowadays, especially in Azerbaijan, people are heavily using WhatsApp, meaning, uh, for us it is very challenging to deliver the message through traditional ways. We are heavily looking and heavily investing to alternative channels. Uh, that’s what I mean, uh, by saying delivering the message with the right way. Everyone has some preferences in terms of challenges. Some people prefer SMS. I mean, it’s very rare group. Most of the people prefer, uh, social media or some other WhatsApp, some other sources, of course, based on our experience, we learned one thing telesales. Still, uh, one of the most efficient way because of some certain things. I mean, uh, we can touch this topic later on if needed. Uh, but it is not scalable right now. Uh, and through AI, we would like to, uh, to scale this, uh, telesales resources as well. So we are, uh, heavily investing our time and resources, uh, based on this question, how we can diversify our channels, how we can, uh, in terms of the offerings, uh, we come up to the point we can approach the customer with the right offer based on the data, etc. so now it’s a time to prioritize what’s the, uh, relevant and tailored channel to the customers and to pick that one and to always, uh, build establish that communication with the customer based on that channel. That’s. Yeah.
[00:37:02:12] Exacaster: If you are interested in customer value management, check out our customer value Management body of knowledge. Cv and Bog is a comprehensive guide for CVM professionals offering tips, tools and best practices to help you in your job. Visit CVM bjork.com for more.
[00:37:20:00] Egidijus: Uh, with my colleague Sharon, as we we have discussed, uh, um, that, uh, uh, ideal scalability of customer value management would be if every touchpoint, every channel, whether it would be the telesales point of sale or, you know, mobile app, etc., would act as if it is a best customer value manager, you know, for the client. So it’s like, uh, I see that, uh, with your AI applications, your, your kind of, uh, targeting towards that direction as well. If I understand correctly. Sure.
[00:37:55:14] Elchin: Yes, definitely. I mean, so that’s the reason why telesales, uh, channel works better because, you know, the lady called the customers and asked, uh, what’s his preferences, etc., etc.. So the identical model we would like to give uh, to establish to build with I just based on the context. Uh, she, I mean, the I can give a couple of alternatives that, you know, will definitely benefit.
[00:38:29:03] Egidijus: No. Knowing that the technology is already almost here. How how much time do you think you will need to adopt it? Um, uh, from the commercial perspective, you know, from the company adoption perspective.
[00:38:43:08] Elchin: It is very, uh, nice, uh, spot because currently everyone, every telco, every entity trying to, uh, catch up in terms of, uh, AI adaptation, etc. and, uh. If we go back a years back, everyone prioritized digital things, right? I mean, digital solutions, uh, I mean, digital things went viral just a year ago, and it requires lots of investment, uh, from, uh, telco side, entity side, operator side. So that’s why, uh, I personally expect it’s not sustainable to invest such a big money to, uh, build the, uh, to build standalone, uh, digital on site digital team. And, uh, just a year later, uh, the focus a bit shift from digital to the I, I mean, definitely there are lots of, um, overlaps, but this is, uh, this is the pure, uh, this will be a pure, uh, game changer, uh, in, uh, let’s say in three years time, uh, especially if we are looking at from the telco standpoint, coming to your question, I mean, it depends. It depends on the division. Because if you are looking at Azure operators, I mean, Asia, uh. Is part of you see, I mean, they’re very bold and brave moves.
[00:40:31:17] Elchin: And the west side we see, uh, a bit moderate things and the US is a totally different story. I mean, it depends on what you are trying to achieve. Uh, if we split and short and long term, I mean, in a year’s time, the operators can easily do lots of things starting from chatbot support, uh, to, uh, uh, especially all this help cost efficiency things uh, on telco side. And this can be completed in one year’s time. And the if, let’s say one operator has a vision to establish AI telco brand, I mean, it requires, uh, a years, maybe three and five years time operators can reach to that, uh, position. Uh, to answer your question, it depends on the vision and the if, uh, again, if they, uh, prioritize some tactical things like, you know, like, uh, telesales to outsource telesales to AI and the, like, 30 recommendations, some personal things. I mean, in one times, uh, period. It’s achievable. And if we are talking about very brave and bold things, I personally expect a three year time frame. Um.
[00:42:02:18] Egidijus: Yeah. Okay. Three years is very fast, you know, and yeah, actually. But if we would move back from I area to, um, uh, your customer value management vision, you know, your framework. So if you, as Elkin, would be running a CVM operations now, what would be your high level framework to steer and guide? You know, all all those tactical things.
[00:42:35:14] Elchin: In terms of I write.
[00:42:38:01] Egidijus: Uh, in terms of, uh, in general running, let’s say, uh, what would be your high level vision for CVM? You know, in terms of everything, it’s because.
[00:42:51:23] Elchin: Yes, actually the the main purpose definitely for us is to maximize customer lifetime value as, uh, much as possible. So that’s the key aim. And that’s why we are tracking customer value, uh, periodically or at least on a monthly basis. And the question is how we manage all this customer value, uh, management things, uh, since we have a scalable basis, uh, on the entities level, We frame the overall look. Into three clusters three buckets. And the first bucket is a, uh we call it a welcome stage. And the meaning, uh, we are, uh, we are trying to onboard our new customers. And we are giving, especially in that, uh, welcoming stage. We are trying to give all emergency information to customers. And the also, we are tracking very closely in that, uh, 30 days because it’s very important. I mean, you will never have a second chance to create a, uh, first impression. So the first impression is important. And the customers, uh, join our, uh, our services and activated our line and the the emergency information. And also we are tracking, uh, the customer usage, let’s say if we see the customer activated line today and we gave all the emergency information and we are waited one week and based on the one week information we are approaching with another action to the customers, it can be offered or it can be, uh, if you have any question, our, uh, you can call to this number, etc., etc.. I mean, it is action not limited with the offer. And another stage is our uh that the the base active base.
[00:45:07:02] Elchin: The customers are, uh, using our, uh, line on daily basis and customer has a more than, uh, 30 days tenure. And we are treating all these customers under active, uh, active stage. And they especially this part is very hard part. I mean, the question may arise, so what’s our approach to manage the customers in activity based. And we try we tested lots of frameworks because uh, again, lots of tiny things, especially in that environment. It requires very high level vision. And the, uh, the one of the frameworks that we work, uh, to approach to that stage is, uh, potential and actual value based on our, uh, customer usage, uh, info and behavior patterns. We we of course, we definitely know actual usage. Meaning rpu mou data, etc. rising everything coming to the potential value. We, uh, we establish a models to, uh, define what’s the maximum, uh, potential of certain customers. And then we look what’s the actual value of the customers. So definitely we see a gap. Right. So, uh, the our ambition is uh, as a CVM to close that gap, that gap meaning uh, let’s say customer value, current actual value is a 10 USD and the potential value is a 20. Then there is a gap 10 USD. So we are trying to close that gap. Uh, as we move forward and with some upsell cross sell, uh, uh offers. And also that’s the one framework we tested, another framework, uh, uh, recently. And this framework is about, uh, uh, customers who are, uh, using our lines, let’s say, as a pay as you go or, uh, at least one recurrent services, meaning bundle, etc., etc..
[00:47:41:00] Elchin: So meaning, uh, we don’t want to put our customers, uh, alone, just, you know, you through, uh, as you go, uh, offers or pay as you go rates or, uh. Pay as you go tariffs. So our ambition uh, to approach the base. Active base. With a subscription base things not pay as you go. So that’s the another. Framework. We are trying trying to apply coming to the retention. And on the retention side we have we built in house uh, rule based and predictive based churn modeling. And based on this model, we are defining some certain customers with a certain risk scores. And we are treating that customers under retention bucket. And we have some, uh, special campaigns and offers that, uh, can save this, uh, customers And also one important things that very, uh. Uh, that’s a specific for prepaid um, market. And in prepaid, uh, we spent lots of times to save all customers. And in last couple of years we spent our energy resources and focuses. Top 20 retention I mean meaning we let’s say we divided the base top 20 segment and the middle 50 and the lower 30. And we are we are attacking to top 20 segment and we are doing everything possible just to save that customers and the lower 30 base. We are uh, mainly not, uh, losing our energy focus and resources on that segment.
[00:49:46:14] Egidijus: This is a very interesting decision. So, uh, what led you as a team towards this decision so that you would be focusing only on the top 20 most valuable customers.
[00:49:58:02] Elchin: Actually, we are very well and highly applying real Pareto in our everyday jobs. And we divided we. We divided the base, we divided the first the. I’m sharing the starting point. We divided the base. We sorted the base from Z to A in terms of the Rpu and then we divided the base half. I mean, you can not imagine this 50% top 50% of the base contribute almost 100. I mean, more than 90% of the revenue and the remaining 50% contributes only less than 10% of the revenue. So that was, uh, eye opening for us. So, I mean, what’s the point? Because all other resources are equally distributed among the customers, but we see, uh, not equal, uh, approach from customer side to us. So meaning equal distribution from our side, but, uh, not identical things from, from their side. So we tried to make it more fair. I’m not equal but fair. So fair means, of course, we have a limited resources as a commercial team. We all these limited resources are allocated to to that, uh, 50% overall. That brings more than 90% of our revenue.
[00:51:37:19] Elchin: And also we apply another period to, to that uh, 50 and divided the top 20 and the, uh, the, the rest 30 and the that’s that that’s the way we, uh, we are working on. And we see real value there because, you know, it is, uh, is in by that time, uh, all this equal, uh, I mean, if you focus on one customer, definitely you cannot focus to another. You have to be more picky to choose which customer you should focus on. Definitely the customer, which brings more value to us. So it means that customer can get more value from us, just, you know, win win. But uh, before that, uh, we observed some, uh, lose win cases. So now, uh, is top uh, 20 and special top 50 and is the key priority for us for everything we do. We we do, uh, starting from the, uh, call answering, uh, campaign, assassination allocation, etc. I mean, the who brings the value for us that gets the equal value of from, uh, the telco, from the brand.
[00:53:06:13] Egidijus: This is a very interesting idea because it’s like, uh, you are waiting. Uh, wait. Basically waiting. Uh, two things. How much customer is invested into you and you make sure that you are invested into the same customer as well. You know, this is kind of non-obvious.
[00:53:25:07] Elchin: Yeah. We are not a charity company. We are a commercial company. So that’s why I’m in commercial mindset should be in center of everything we do.
[00:53:35:04] Egidijus: Mhm. Uh, before we go to wrap up, uh part, I have one more question to you. So from your perspective, what are the biggest challenges for customer value management in the upcoming year or two? You know, from your perspective?
[00:53:56:02] Elchin: Uh, actually, I think personally, I integration definitely will be key challenge. Uh, so this, uh, this can be I see three things, right? The first, all data, analytical things. I mean, if the question arise, can I bring value to that field? The answer is definitely yes. So this is the one thing, the another thing offer creation path because currently the we are somehow it is the semi-automated. And sometime the tool itself suggests the options about the offer recommendation, and some time our team come up with some options and offer, uh, recommendation offer a development offer. Creation party is also important and we are looking very closely around the globe. There are lots of startups that are growing in that field. Uh, over designing things. And also another important part, as I, uh, touch, um, a bit, uh, the communication, how I can, uh, support CVM to diversify the communication and to make, uh, the company communication channel more tailored to the customers. I see this, uh, three, let’s say bucket that really, uh, that requires much attention and also requires more. And this is a green field for AI integration. So let’s say like this I see this uh, uh, challenge as we move forward.
[00:55:54:00] Egidijus: And these are challenges and sound very inspiring as well, you know. Uh. Very interesting. Yeah. Yes.
[00:56:00:04] Elchin: Yeah. Good, good.
[00:56:01:09] Egidijus: And, uh, now moving to the last part of our conversation, uh, we always ask three questions, you know. So question number one is what was your proudest career moment that you can share with us.
[00:56:19:08] Elchin: Uh, so far, I love your question. I mean these three. I expect a bit challenging, but I love the challenging questions and the. When I started this journey, and definitely lots of manual things manual work requires from, uh, people and from the team, from myself And in that time, I see that there are lots of ways to make something automated. And when I join one company and I ask how many campaigns you are doing in one month? The answer was one campaign in that time, couple of years ago. Actually, I a bit surprised. I say we can make it hundred. I mean everyone surprise and shock how uh, I say that I know the way. I mean, together with team, we will definitely reach to that point in three months time. We reached to that point with, again, millennials, but semi-automated tools including AR, etc. we automated, uh, all possible work that, you know, done by people. We automated it and we reach, uh, 200 campaigns in one month. That was, uh, one of the proudest moments, uh, for me, uh, because I love, uh, automation. And it’s more relevant to my DNA automation and, you know, to because we as a people, we spend more time on creative things. I mean, routines works, uh, can be delegated to the tools, I believe, and subscribe to that vision. And also, uh, another proudest moment for me and working as a CVM, I saw lots of opportunities and campaign management tools. You know, there is in that time there was a spike. And, uh, we first time in Azerbaijan, in one operator, we launch fully automated end to end campaign management tool together with the team. And this was another proudest moment for me. And from that time I learned a lot. And actually I love that. I mean, uh, before, uh, it requires lots of clicks to launch one campaigns and through campaign management tool, I mean, few clicks the campaign went to the customers so that this, uh, two things really come to my mind as a proudest moment.
[00:59:22:12] Egidijus: Uh, now as working in this area where there are a lot of moving parts, a lot of things happening, a lot of campaigns are automated. Uh, I bet that you had a failure or two. Could you share, uh, a kind of, uh, uh.
[00:59:40:00] Elchin: Something that you can result failures without failures. You cannot move forward. So that’s, uh, that’s that’s the mindset we have. Because especially in CVM, you have to, uh, be very good appetite for failures. I mean, otherwise you will not learn a lot. And I remember one, uh, one day, uh, I mean, five years ago when we launched, uh, the company management tool, everyone happy, excited, etc.. And in one day, uh, we, you know, we are launching lots of campaigns, etc. we launch a campaign and after five minutes we receive lots of calls from our internal operational teams. I mean, data team, uh, call center, everyone call and complaining what you did there. We say, you know, it is. It is our routine. Routine since we launch a campaign. So the question is how many people receive that campaign we see around? It can be maximum around 100 K, etc., etc. everyone say impossible because data all our base, all the call center, I mean every infrastructure feels that load. I mean something happens there Please tell me, what was. So we actually we started, um, uh, to to understand what went wrong. And we see that instead of 100 K is we launched a campaign 2 million. We we covered 2 million customers. You know, I mean, 2 million customers receive receive the offer. I mean, the offer is was very brave. In normal condition.
[01:01:38:20] Elchin: I mean, no one can dare to to give that offer in normal condition. I mean, everyone was shocked. Uh, people, uh, you know, blame each other, etc. I mean, after, uh, a couple of hours and, uh, we, we gathered as a team and we say that, you know, this is, uh, this happened, right? So let’s see, let’s focus on opportunities, what we can, uh, learn from that one. Uh, and tomorrow, because we that that time we saw the figures with one day lag and the tomorrow we see two days. Two days. We see, yesterday’s figures. And tomorrow we, uh, gather the team and everyone, uh, look carefully. All the data, all the campaign results, etc.. I mean, that failure. Learn a lot of things to the team and me personally. And still we are using that tricks in our campaigns, uh, management things because, you know, especially we have a significant share of multi-sim users. I mean, just looking at one operator data, you don’t have a holistic view on customer usage. I mean, through that campaign, we see, you know, low user become high user. You know how it’s possible because you know that user use another operator lines. So that was uh, the biggest failure, uh, in that time. But that failure, biggest failure also learned, uh, we learned because, uh, things and still we are benefiting from that learnings.
[01:03:29:16] Egidijus: And uh, from all your conversation, I hear that you are learning a lot reading, etc. could you recommend your learning resource? You know, uh, for, uh, our fellow customer value managers?
[01:03:46:16] Elchin: Actually, is there are a lot, uh, learning, uh, sources, especially, uh, I’m sharing just my personal experience. Uh, I subscribe on one side, I subscribe, uh, some, uh, uh, email distribution list. I am receiving weekly digest emails. This is the one, uh, and also I’m keeping myself up to date just, uh, reading that, uh, daily and weekly emails and also, uh, podcasts, especially nowadays, help us a lot. I mean, while driving, uh. Exercising. You can learn, uh, you can listen and learn lots of things. And another, uh, stream is, uh, book. Uh, there are lots of definitely, uh, very valuable, uh, things we can learn from them. And another one. Investor presentation. Investor. Uh, each operator has a, uh, investor capital market day investor presentation. Uh, uh, periodically I’m checking that resources and I’m learning all the benchmarks and especially come to the CVM itself. I mean, some operators, uh, very bravely share their strategy. I mean, it is for us just to visit their, uh, website and to check that the resources and also from people, uh, uh, this is our, uh, this is our, the learning resources.
[01:05:25:20] Elchin: And just to give some, uh, examples. Um, uh, I mean, the coming to the CVM itself, the, the people, I mean, can learn from, uh, about CVM, etc.. I found only your CVM podcast. This is your only unique channel that people can visit and learn about CVM. I mean, you have a number one and no competitor there. This is the pure green field. And also thanks a lot for doing that. This is I see lots of value there. And uh, another podcast, I especially love to hear the, the visionary leaders and to listen their, um, story and the latest podcast, uh, in that, uh, field, uh, helps a lot and also Stanford view from the top. That’s also very, uh, wonderful, uh, arena that you can listen and learn from there. Uh, and I can give some example about, uh, books and especially for people, uh, because some some books, you can learn very specific things. Right. And uh, some books gives uh, a bit horizon, especially for people who start their journey career. And what got you here wouldn’t get you there. I mean, this is.
[01:07:08:13] Elchin: Uh, very transformational book, You know, it. It learns, uh, people, from time to time, you have to let go of some skill set, and you have to learn, learn and earn new ones. And the it is also valid for kids just for kids to grow. They have to let go some toys. Otherwise he will never grow. So this, uh, this is, uh, this is a very good book to read. And also films. Films? Uh, I personally, in the last couple of months and years, I spent more time on, uh, uh, films. And that the playbook. I mean, this is the wonderful Netflix, uh, movie The Playbook and the, uh, you know, lots of learnings. And the coaches share their learnings. So this is the wonderful and the the Moneyball and the people who has a more analytical things and who, uh, love this, uh, numbers, uh, things. Uh, definitely. We love that Moneyball, uh, film as well. I mean, this is also you are learning lots of things just watching. And the different thing that’s very I hope, uh, I will I have gave, uh, answers to your questions.
[01:08:39:06] Egidijus: Yeah, definitely. Thank you for sharing. Your, know, how, uh, your insight. I learned a lot. And, um. Yeah. Thank you for, uh, sharing with us today.
[01:08:54:21] Elchin: Thanks a lot for you and for the team, because, uh, this is very important platform for people to share their experience and also for listeners and for richer for watchers, they I hope at least top three things they will take from your session. And I personally appreciate all your efforts and my personal thanks. Uh, all your things that you know you’re brilliantly doing and consistently doing this is also important. I mean, some people doing, uh, starting the journey and the in the middle of somewhere, they, uh, stop it. And you are consistently doing this. I personally appreciate it and you prepare very valuable contents. Thanks a lot. Thank you. And also for inviting me.
[01:09:46:12] Exacaster: CVM stories is produced by Exacaster. We help companies take their customer value management to the next level. To stay updated on our latest episodes, subscribe to the podcast or sign up for an email newsletter@exacaster.com. Slash CVM stories.
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