En route to a staggering $4.2 trillion valuation by 2031, the media and entertainment industry is witnessing a radical shift in how audiences consume and interact with content.
Demand for personalized, immersive, and on-demand experiences is at an all-time high, putting pressure on companies to deliver a top-notch customer experience (CX) that attracts and keeps customers for the long haul.
Customers now expect flawless, consistent service across various channels, customized recommendations and quick, practical support. Any lapses can lead to frustration, customer loss, and a tarnished brand image.
Recognizing this, leading media and entertainment brands are investing in CX improvements, showing a clear link between exceptional CX and business growth, including better engagement, retention, and increased revenue.
Understanding and refining the customer journey is vital. This means examining each interaction, from initial brand awareness to the subscription process and beyond.
By mapping these journeys and applying four key CX levers—people, strategy, innovation, and analytics—media and entertainment companies can identify potential pain points and areas for improvement, allowing them to tailor CX strategies to specific customer segments while ensuring that every interaction is relevant, personalized, and memorable.
Getting CX right is no longer an option; it’s imperative for survival and success. Let’s explore some of the challenges that media and entertainment brands face.
Challenges: Subscription Fatigue and CX Fallbacks
With the ever-increasing abundance of content options in video, music, gaming, print, radio, and television, brands face a phenomenon known as “subscription fatigue”, a trend of transient customer loyalty and a tendency to subscribe temporarily to gain access to specific content before canceling.
To combat this, media and entertainment companies can leverage their extensive data to understand individual preferences, tailoring content and experiences to maintain long-term subscriber relationships.
Along with personalization, addressing subscription fatigue requires a comprehensive assessment (and perhaps overhaul) of the industry’s approach to CX. Media and entertainment companies must strive for consistency in customer service across different brands, departments, and geographies. This requires centralized training, standardized processes, and effective data management to ensure a uniformly positive experience.
During peak demand, having scalable customer support across channels is vital to managing increased interactions and maintaining service quality. Simplifying complex billing systems and providing comprehensive technical support also play a significant role in enhancing satisfaction.
Depending on the media platform, it’s common for customers to experience complex issues or require specific information for intricate device configuration. In these cases, both customers and support agents need access to knowledge bases or self-service options to enhance customer satisfaction.
Integrating human-led customer service, deep CX strategies, bleeding-edge innovations, and advanced analytics is vital for retaining subscribers and building stronger, lasting relationships with the audience. These components form the cornerstone of effective CX in the ever-changing media and entertainment sector.
Let’s look more in-depth at these four levers and how they solve many of the industry’s CX challenges.
People: Loyalty-Driving Human CX Connections
Even amidst the strides in CX-centric artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and chatbots, the necessity for genuine human interaction stands firm in the media and entertainment industry.
Automated systems are great for managing routine administrative tasks, such as updating customer details or handling subscriptions. Still, they lack the capacity for empathy and the nuanced understanding needed for more complex interactions, like resolving complaints or providing tailored assistance.
Human customer service teams are the linchpins of customer loyalty. While technology is undoubtedly advancing in this area, human teams will always be more adept at perceiving and responding to various emotional states – whether a customer is content, upset, or distressed, for instance. They can also have unique conversations with customers about their favorite media and entertainment content, establishing a bond over shared interests.
Empowered by AI, human agents can provide even better service. For example, an AI digital assistant can suggest the next-best actions to customer service agents based on trigger words during live conversations. This kind of support is invaluable, especially for newer agents who may benefit from this guidance, while also keeping experienced agents informed with crucial updates and alerts.
Yet, the key to a harmonious CX is the smooth transition from tech-driven assistance to human intervention. When a chatbot reaches its limit, a seamless handover to a human agent is critical, ensuring uninterrupted, high-quality customer service and enabling more effective, personalized communication.
True emotional intelligence will always be vital to customer satisfaction, so media and entertainment brands should analyze and consider how human-led CX can improve customer retention.
Strategy: Ensuring Excellence on the Customer Journey
CX strategy is essential for maintaining top-quality experiences at every step of the customer journey, from initial discovery to ongoing engagement.
Before potential customers decide to subscribe, their journey begins on platforms like social media or through targeted advertising, which are strategic moments to foster trust and awareness. Engaging content—such as insightful articles, captivating videos, or exclusive offers—plays a crucial role in this phase. Clear communication about your services enhances transparency, adding value while educating potential customers.
When customers become paying subscribers, the strategy should focus on creating a seamless sign-up experience backed up with the latest CX tools and a dedicated customer service team. Meticulous analysis of every touchpoint, ranging from the design of landing pages or applications to the efficiency of the payment processes, is crucial, as are accessible customer support channels.
Beyond the initial purchase, the strategy pivots towards personalized engagement. This involves cross-channel communication, curated content recommendations, and responsive support. A dedicated contact center team becomes instrumental in offering accessible assistance and managing pivotal moments, such as addressing concerns during price changes or handling subscription cancellations.
An effective CX strategy should also incorporate a continuous feedback loop. This involves constantly gathering and analyzing customer insights to refine and enhance the experience. At its core, the strategy should resonate with the essence of the industry – entertainment blended with empathy. Every interaction should aim to entertain and connect with the audience, establishing a bond beyond mere transactional relationships.
When media and entertainment brands adopt this customer-centric strategy, they can unlock new growth opportunities and deepen customer loyalty. The key is transforming every customer touchpoint into a moment to reaffirm the brand’s commitment to delivering outstanding entertainment experiences.
Innovation: Revolutionizing Engagement with Technology
Innovation plays a starring role in media and entertainment CX, acting as a transformative force in how audiences interact with content and services.
As we explored before, AI-powered chatbots are a great starting point, efficiently handling basic inquiries and smoothly transitioning more complex issues to human agents for that essential personal touch.
But the CX innovation story in this industry is much broader than just chatbots. Omnichannel experiences are revolutionizing the game, allowing customers to seamlessly switch between devices and platforms, from TVs to laptops to smartphones, without missing a beat. It’s about keeping the experience cohesive, no matter where the audience is.
Moreover, the integration of virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) brings content to life, paving the way for engaging experiences that could soon extend into the potential widespread adoption of the metaverse. Imagine stepping into the world of your favorite show or being part of the action in a live concert—these kinds of experiences are already becoming possible, with Eminem and others featuring in a virtual concert in Fortnite at the end of 2023.
Voice recognition technology is simplifying how we interact with our devices. Gone are the days of endless scrolling; a simple voice command can now bring up your preferred show or playlist. These new ways of interacting, coupled with hyper-personalization, like Spotify’s cleverly crafted annual wrap-ups, make every interaction feel unique and tailored for individual customers.
Self-service options are also on the rise, reflecting the evolving preferences of today’s audiences, who often prefer quick, DIY solutions. Brands are stepping up, offering intuitive self-help channels, with business process outsourcing (BPO) providers like Inspiro playing a pivotal role in making these platforms accessible on various devices. This self-reliance not only enhances customer satisfaction but also streamlines operations.
CX innovation in this dynamic industry is about creating a customer journey that’s not just technologically advanced but also deeply engaging and personal. It’s about consistently delivering experiences that resonate, evolve, and exceed expectations, both in how content is consumed and support is provided.
Analytics: Unlocking Insights for Enhanced Loyalty
Data analytics stand as a powerful force in shaping CX for the media and entertainment industry. The true strength of analytics lies in gathering and interpreting extensive data on user behavior, preferences, and engagement, uncovering valuable insights into what content (or CX strategy) strikes a chord with audiences and what doesn’t.
Predictive analytics, for example, enable media companies to understand and anticipate customer retention challenges. Imagine identifying which subscribers might be suffering from subscriber fatigue and proactively engaging them with tailored incentives or feedback opportunities. This proactive approach can be a game-changer in reducing churn.
One standout benefit of BPO partnerships is the collaborative ability to integrate global insights with localized strategies. This ensures that customers receive a personalized experience that feels relevant and respectful of their unique backgrounds.
However, the power of analytics extends further into fine-tuning audience segmentation. An effective analytics strategy can help media and entertainment brands move beyond one-size-fits-all advertising to create messages that resonate with customers personally. Using insights from first-party data like site interactions and purchase histories, they help curate watchlists or playlists that feel almost handpicked for each user, enhancing their content experience.
Beyond just content, analytics play a critical role in evaluating customer service. By analyzing interactions, companies gain insights into the performance of their support teams and how every conversation, instant message, email, or chat shapes customer loyalty and satisfaction. The feedback and patterns revealed through analytics are invaluable, guiding improvements in customer service strategies and aiding in developing targeted training programs for agents.
In whichever way media and entertainment brands adopt analytics, the result is always a deeper understanding of customers, the power to predict their needs, and the knowledge to refine service offerings and CX strategies continually.
BPO Partnerships: Effective Solutions to CX Challenges
In the face of subscription fatigue, customer loyalty challenges, and rapid surges in demand, ensuring high-quality CX is paramount for media and entertainment brands – but there’s no reason to tackle these challenges alone. Here, business process outsourcing (BPO) partners become potent allies, offering solutions finely tuned to these industry-specific CX bottlenecks.
BPO partners like Inspiro have decades of experience developing effective, agile, scalable customer service models. They manage high volumes of customer interactions across various platforms efficiently and add a layer of sophistication with their analytics capabilities. This allows them to understand and predict customer behavior, offering a proactive approach to CX that profoundly resonates with modern media and entertainment audiences.
One standout benefit of BPO partnerships is the collaborative ability to integrate global insights with localized strategies. BPO brands provide a global perspective on customer trends while tailoring their approach to meet specific regional preferences and cultural nuances. This global-local synergy ensures that customers receive a personalized experience that feels relevant and respectful of their unique backgrounds.
Complexities in billing and payment, often a stumbling block in customer satisfaction, are elegantly simplified through BPO partnerships. They bring streamlined systems and transparent communication strategies, reducing confusion and boosting customer trust.
Technical support, too, gets a boost from BPOs. They provide comprehensive knowledge bases and user-friendly self-service options, crucial for swiftly resolving technical issues and enhancing customer satisfaction. With centralized training, standardized processes, and effective data management, ensure a uniformly excellent customer service experience worldwide.
Furthermore, BPO providers streamline operational efficiency. By taking over certain customer service functions, BPOs allow media companies to focus more on their core competencies, like content creation and distribution. This division of labor can lead to better resource allocation and overall operational cost savings.
By harmonizing human-centric service with strategic CX design, innovative solutions, and analytics-driven insights, BPO providers like Inspiro are instrumental in helping media companies retain their subscribers and build solid and lasting relationships in a highly dynamic market.
