FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Customers have gone digital, now on firms to catch up

Customers have gone digital, now on firms to catch up

Thailand is a global leader in data consumption. So why aren’t services here more digital?

As the country continues to shoot for Thailand 4.0, talk of the digital gap is intensifying. Not only do we need a strong ecosystem for cutting-edge start-ups by ex-Googlers and MIT graduates, we also need to think of how digitalisation can reach our farmers and motorcycle drivers.
As 90 per cent of Thais access the Internet through their mobile phones, telecommunications companies are at the heart of this digital gap issue. But our pre-paid customers, who pay for their mobile phone usage as they go, are traditionally considered as being digital laggards compared to their post-paid counterparts. They are associated with lower incomes and lower digital competence.
There is an increasing amount of data that says otherwise.
Between March 2017 and March 2018, the average data consumption by DTAC’s pre-paid customers skyrocketed from 5.8 to 9 gigabytes per month. To put that in perspective, the average monthly mobile data usage in Europe reached 2.4GB per SIM card by the end of 2017, according to figures from GlobalData. Germany was below 1GB!
This has completely reshaped Thailand’s media landscape. Workpoint Digital TV now simulcasts across TV, YouTube, and social media. The result? A clip from “The Mask Singer” topped YouTube’s global trending videos in 2017. That’s right: Thailand, with a population of 69 million, topped a global ranking where it competed with content in languages like English (360 million speakers) or Spanish (400 million).
YouTube’s dominance in Thailand didn’t happen simply thanks to home and office computers or mobile users stuck in traffic. DTAC recently compiled some data on hit TV series “Love Destiny” (“BuppeSanNivas” in Thai). Aggregated data showed a majority of viewers were 
connected to a single base-station during the entirety of the show, indicating they were most likely watching the show at home. Nor is this a phenomenon limited to major cities. The show’s growth was strongest in remote provinces. 
My point is that everyone, pre-paid customers included, is now a heavy data user, employing their phone both at home and on the go. And to better serve those customers, banking, retail and telecommunications companies need to do a better job of meeting them where they are – which is on their phones.
DTAC conducted surveys and interviews to prototype a completely redesigned app for our pre-paid customers. What they told us is that they expect the same level of detail in managing their spending as they have in a banking app. They want to see every transaction, not just how much their wallet currently holds.
Using an iterative and highly-collaborative workflow (what’s known as “the agile method”), we were able to quickly roll out these changes to our pre-paid app. It is now available on iOS and Android. While it’s still early days, feedback has already been very positive. More importantly, it marks a shift in how we serve our 17 million pre-paid customers. They are already digital. It’s now on us to give them the tools to live the digital lifestyle they wish for.

Nuttee Sakkullapat is a vice president and head of the app and digitalisation department at DTAC.

RELATED
nationthailand