How to Improve the Customer Experience for Mobile Operators with Smart 2020 Mobile Security

By Philip Mustain, Mobolize | CEO, Co-Founder

Customer experience has become a top priority for businesses in 2020. Customers no longer base loyalty on price or basic product. Instead, they stay loyal due to their experience with products and companies. This trend isn’t just about buying the coolest clothes to wear on a Zoom call, it’s also about mobile operators pleasing customers by providing a safe and secure mobile experience.

With the increase in working from home and schools adopting distance or online education, the use of personal mobile devices has increased. Along with this increase, mobile security has become a growing concern for users and for school districts and parents with the new emphasis on distance learning from home.

There is more awareness of the need for mobile security because there is more need. According to Tom Leighton, Akamai Technologies CEO, in a recent edition of CNBC’s Squawk Box he said that by Q2 2020 the demand for online security products has seen one year’s worth of growth because of the pandemic. However, malicious attacks have advanced by several years of growth.

“The size and scale of attacks is unprecedented so we’re seeing the threat actors trying to take advantage of the distraction and vulnerabilities caused by the pandemic, especially with enterprises having employees work remotely,” Leighton said.

Even before today’s emphasis on online learning, educational security breaches were not uncommon. A standard response is to implement online portals, but they typically don’t have strong filters to protect students’ and teachers’ data from identity theft or using it for blackmail or bullying. Plus, malicious scams of phishing and farming require students of all ages to wisely manage links in emails which can be challenging without an effective security system.

With the increase in awareness of the need for security, providing easy access to mobile security can become a key factor in improving the customer experience for operators. Also, a good customer experience means customers will spend more. According to a Walker study, by the end of 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. So, the mobile operator who provides a cost-effective mobile security product can enhance their customer experience rates and increase sales.

Mobolize, with its on-device Data Traffic Management Engine, has seen its mobile operator partners increase sales in add-on Wi-Fi security in 2020. The increase is assumed to be due to a broader awareness of security issues on mobile devices and the reality that current solutions fall short. With increased sales has come lower churn rates as customers see value in an effective security application.

For example, prepaid mobile operators offer lots of pricing deals, but that means customers often change operators based on those deals. By offering a security service that’s easy to use, safer and more efficiently reduces personal and even enterprise data from being compromised on a users’ device, mobile security becomes key. By being key, smart security increases the positive customer experience and is an experience that customers are willing to pay for.

One of our customers has seen an increase of more than 400% in the sales of their security add on service since the beginning of this year. Part of their success is making access and usage of the security product simple, while promoting security as an add on that reduces risk to personal data. Overall product details define the risks of an unsecure Wi-Fi network and how their product (using our Data Traffic Management Engine) works. Making the security add on easy to download and easy to activate as a monthly subscription results in the ability to use web and apps safely on Wi-Fi networks. That’s good for business, but it’s also good for the customer experience.

This is a tough year. There are lots of funny cartoons showing how 2020 will become code for everything out of control. But this year has also established with users the high value of managing mobile security which helps stay in control. Mobile operators are smart to offer this security cost effectively to their customers which positively impacts customer experience.

That’s smart. Mobolize smart.