Social Network Analytics

Social Network Analytics have emerged as a key paradigm in modern sociology, technology, and information sciences. The paradigm stems from the view that the attributes of an individual in a network are less important than their ties with other individuals in the network. Through the exploration of this theory, ATS has examined the communication patterns of millions of customers with an eye towards the impact a customer who has churned can have on their social network.

So the real question is, what does social network analytics mean in the telecom space? Is it Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn? Maybe, but the real power of social network analytics lies in the data the telecom companies record and process every minute of every day; Voice and SMS records. The social networks that exist within your subscriber base are incredibly rich with information that can tell you anything from what movie they might want to watch next to who is getting ready to churn away to a competitor.

The ability to identify customers that are at an increased risk of churn provides tremendous benefits to the marketing department. Directly targeting customers likely to churn helps marketers spend ‘smarter’ and ultimately reduce the overall company churn rate. For example, let’s say a carrier spends $1M dollars on a TV campaign that targets 250k customers ($4 per customer). The average churn rate among those customers will likely mimic the carrier’s overall average churn rate. However, if the carrier targets the 50k customers that are at a higher risk of churn, they could spend up to $20 per customer and have a better chance at saving the customer as well as having an immediate positive impact on the overall company churn percentage.