SK Telecom extends the mobile touch experience with video

By Allan Tan | Apr 1, 2009

Competition for customer face time is tougher than ever. Product leaders today can be laggards tomorrow as development cycles shorten and innovation in design, manufacturing and marketing push the envelope of competition. Clear leadership is fleeting as competitors look for ways to get even closer to the customer. Today Korea and Japan have been leading the charge in customer contact innovation. In both cultures the mobile phone has become the absolute necessity to daily living.

A clear distinction these days is in the area of customer service. How many times have you called your local cable operator or broadband service provider or airplane operator and be greeted by an monotonous voice that tells you to press a certain key to get a specific service? A number of these so called "customer-centric" businesses have even taken out the traditional dial "0" or "9" to speak to a customer representative. You'd wonder, as I do, whether this is purposely done to stop you from calling the 'customer hotline'.

Mobile phone penetration rate in Korea stands at 94.6% according to OVUM KOREA. Of the 45.99 million mobile phone subscribers, 50.49% are SK Telecom customers. With such a large population of customers and competiton from KTF and LG Telecom hot on its heels, you should not be surprise to learn that SK Telecom is constantly looking for ways to innovate its operations to better serve a fickle customer base.

"Korean carriers seem to be good at providing any customized customer service, especially thru the net (On-line billing, management of supplementary services, tariff management etc.) Also, these activities are well streamlined with off-line customer support," said William Lee, senior analyst, for OVUM KOREA.
 

source: OVUM KOREA, April 2009