It’s no surprise that text messaging is the most requested feature on mobile phones. In fact, the top 5 most popular features listed in a recent Amplitude Research survey are pretty understandable given the evolution of mobile technology in the past 5 years:
- text messaging (73%)
- camera (67%)
- e-mail (63%)
- Internet (61%)
- music (34%)
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| DeGrace: Operators are missing out on the churn-reducing capability in phone books. |
But what’s missing on this list is the one feature that initiates all communications on the mobile device: the phone book. Without it, mobile phones would be an accessory, not an indispensable communication tool.
So why doesn’t the phone book appear on this list of must-haves? Most subscribers (and their mobile operators) view it as a standard mobile phone feature. No one would buy a phone without a place to store their contacts. Without easy access to people’s contact information, initiating a mobile call, SMS, e-mail, mobile IM chat or a mobile location-based service is a huge aggravation, if not impossible.
Despite its necessity, the phone book in its current incarnation doesn’t deliver much value to consumers or to mobile operators due to its severe limitations.
New on the horizon is the social address book, which transforms the phone book on any standard mobile phone into a social networking platform that makes it easier for subscribers to exchange contact information.
When you think about it, our real social network is the people we meet and communicate with on a daily basis, not simply a list on a Website. The foundation of our social network is literally in the palm of our hands: our mobile phone book. Mobile operators are right in the middle of this real-world network.
Innovative operators are now beginning to understand the strategic value of the mobile phone book. These early adopters are implementing social address books to let subscribers grow their social networks. These operators have launched new services that have transformed a basic built-in phone function into the hub of subscribers’ every mobile communication. These new social address books have simplified people’s daily lives. With one click, subscribers can instantaneously expand their social networks by exchanging contact information and adding new contacts directly to their social address books without the hassle of typing. Moreover, these new contacts are automatically kept up-to-date when friends and colleagues change their contact information. The result: mobile operator revenue increases as subscribers make more connections – phone calls, SMS, e-mail, mobile instant messaging, video sharing, etc. – with an enriched social address book.
CONNECTIONS & RELATIONSHIPS
The problem for mobile operators is that they’ve been so focused on being first to market with the newest handsets or the latest services such as mobile TV, they haven’t really focused on unlocking and increasing the value of the phonebook.
That’s too bad because when you think about it, the phone book is where people store their life-long connections. If a mobile operator can initiate, manage and store meaningful connections to more of my friends and colleagues, and enable me to reach these people across multiple communication channels, I am theirs for life.
I’ll never want to give up that convenience and value. Mobile operators are in the prime position to converge personal information management (PIM) and social networking, as they can facilitate and manage these connections using the most social device in peoples’ lives – the mobile phone.
Unfortunately, the current method of updating a mobile phone book is tedious at best. Sure, it’s easy in the Internet world. vCards store nicely in Outlook. However, handset phone books are proprietary and do not accept one format across manufacturers. To make things more complicated, cross-operator network issues limit the exchanging of contact information.
Then there is the issue of initiating the exchange, which isn’t easy for those on the move. For the average subscriber, there’s no easy way to enter more than a first name and a mobile number – even for the closest of friends.
As a power user with a high-end phone, I can download all my contacts from Outlook, but I still have no easy way of adding new people I meet when I’m away from my PC or I don’t have time to key-in their contact information. Furthermore, keeping these contacts updated as people move around and change their information is still a huge challenge.
When subscribers have to fuss with the keypad to add and update contacts, they’re likely to lose interest in managing this mess, especially for people they only occasionally call or text and never have the opportunity to IM or e-mail. Bottom line, this leads to user frustration and lower mobile usage.
COMPETITIVE ISSUES
Manually managing a standard mobile phone book is tiresome because network operators didn’t think they had control over this feature, and therefore, have not spent much time enhancing it. They originally believed phone books were device-specific applications, under the control of handset manufacturers. However, unbeknownst to many operators, they have an advantage over handset manufacturers and the social networking services such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, which are all coming into the picture with their eyes on the phone book.
Everyone is trying to own this pot of gold. Mobile operators are the best-positioned to deliver mobile social address books that overcome handset limitations and social networking walled gardens.
While Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn want to keep their users within their walled gardens, mobile subscribers want to gain the maximum “social” benefit as their social circles cross many different social networking brands. Put another way, a mobile social network isn’t very social if subscribers can’t exchange contact information with whomever they want, whenever they want, or if they have to go to multiple sources (mobile phone book, Outlook, LinkedIn, etc.) to get access to their “contacts.”
Giving users fatter pipes and smarter mobile phones to access all of these different social networking Websites is not a winning strategy because the operator is removed from the value-chain and becomes only the pipe provider. In order for operators to capitalize on the social address book’s benefits, they need to make it easier for subscribers to share, add and update contact information.
CONTACTS ARE KING
Operators are investing millions of dollars in network address book solutions – enabling subscribers to sync their mobile phone contacts to “the network,” where they can be accessed by other applications or manipulated and sent back down to the handset. However, the root problem still exists: contacts cannot easily be added to the standard phonebook, whether it’s people in my closest social circles, or a high-school friend whom I’ve recently reconnected with on LinkedIn. And even if I get these contacts (with limited information) into the phone book, how does this information stay up-to-date?
Studies such as those from Amplitude Research come as a surprise to me when the social address book does not make the subscriber list, but is clearly mobile’s killer application. That said, some mobile operators are moving toward mobile social networking and the phone book. However, this movement is happening without addressing fundamental subscriber needs and pain points. The phonebook is usually involved in the first series of clicks every subscriber makes when initiating a phone call, SMS, mobile e-mail, or mobile IM chat, and it is therefore the key leverage point for increasing service usage for operators.
If operators can offer services to enrich the management and storage of subscribers’ life-long connections, churn will be less of an issue. The technology has evolved to the point where operators can capitalize on the mobile phone book by simplifying how subscribers build and maintain their life-long connections via social address books. Doing so seeds the mobile social network that operators look toward for future survival.
DeGrace is vice president of products and alliances for OnePIN.
