Play perfects the art of realtime marketing with SAS

Play is one of the fastest growing mobile operators in Europe, with over 14.3 million subscribers. Play provides Polish customers and businesses mobile voice, messaging and data offerings on a contract and prepaid basis. A fundamental part of the successful entry start and the continuous growth of the company, is the way Play uses data and analytics to inform and serve their customers. Adam Kutyma is Business Analysis Director at Play, and together with his interdisciplinary team of professionals, he is exploring new and unconventional ideas that will shape the data driven future for the mobile operator.

Road to Realtime Direct Marketing

Play was founded little over ten years ago, and from the start onwards, the company acted as an aggressive challenger. Their strategy worked: Play gained market share extremely fast. "We started with simple sms and mms campaigns and used scoring models to measure the results", says Kutyma. "We soon realized that we had to innovate to secure further growth, that is why we invested in event based marketing that eventually led to realtime direct marketing. We investigated customer behaviour and pinpointed the events that could lead to a higher churn rate. Take for instance a bad experience with the customer care center. An unsatisfied customer might drop the call and move on to a different supplier. If we notice such an event, we directly respond with different forms of communication and ask for instant feedback. The engine that runs these campaigns is, amongst others, fueled by SAS."

Importance of analytics

The response rate of realtime marketing campaigns is surpassing standard campaigns by 10 to 40 procent. "A customer is more likely to buy a solution directly after he encounters the problem. Call him a day later and he'll be less inclined to accept or even listen to your offer. This might not sound like rocket science, but timing is a widely underestimated part of marketing. We don't create new products or messages, but find the right time to distribute our content and communicate with our customers", says Kutyma.

Business idea

Kutyma advises other companies to encourage innovation throughout the whole business. "Do not implement solutions that only the IT department uses. You should have a valid business idea and test it. The last step is introducing new technology. For instance, Play wanted to notify customers that their subscription was ending or they were reaching the limit of their data bundle. We tried to add a step by suggesting special or tailored offers to our customers besides these notifications. After we tested the idea, we prolonged and the eventual technological step was to connect our billing system to our solution for real time marketing. We used the SAS Platform because of the great integration possibilities."

Smartphone driven world

Play believes we are living in a smartphone driven world. "Customer behaviour is changing and we aim to offer the best customer experience using mobile services. With our data driven marketing efforts our customers are contacted at the right time with the right information or offer", explains Kutyma. “SAS understands how important this is and therefore is a strong partner. Our success story doesn't stop here: we will continue to innovate and get better results. For us, using data and analytics is the only way forward."