ST. LOUIS, Feb. 13, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Amdocs (NASDAQ:DOX), the leading provider of customer experience solutions, today announced the findings of a consumer and service provider survey, which showed that mobile financial service (MFS) providers are failing to fully realize the potential of loyalty programs to drive revenue growth. A significant gap exists between what customers want and what they are offered. This is especially true for unbanked users: 80% are not enrolled in any loyalty program. The findings also reveal a lack of awareness of the types of loyalty programs being offered.
The survey, which was commissioned by Amdocs and conducted by analyst and consultancy firm Ovum, focused on banked and unbanked users of MFS worldwide. It surveyed 1,800 consumers and 42 service providers across 9 countries in emerging and mature markets including the United States, Singapore, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Vietnam.
“MFS providers who employ loyalty programs to engage and retain customers are better placed to increase usage and adoption of their mobile wallet service, thereby driving revenue growth,” said Eden Zoller, principal analyst at Ovum. “However they must still address the gaps that exist between what customers want and what they are being offered.”
Key survey findings
- Ability to manage multiple loyalty cards using a single mobile wallet is the most important feature—but not well supported by service providers: The overwhelming majority of respondents consider it very important (61%) or important (34%) to be able to manage different loyalty cards via a single wallet. However, only 33% of service providers offer this feature. The other important feature that consumers want is the ability to share loyalty points with friends and family. While 46% rated this feature as very important and 42% as important, only 21% of service providers support this. Younger respondents (aged 16-24) showed even more interest, with 51% saying it was very important and 40% rating it as important.
- Tiered loyalty programs drive greater mobile wallet usage: Only half of service providers offer tiered loyalty programs. Of these, 79% said that the prospect of earning higher tier points incentivizes customers to use their services more. Consumers however, still lack awareness of such programs, with 19% saying they didn’t know if their loyalty program was tiered.
- Consumers like to accumulate loyalty points to purchase products and services or to receive cash discounts; cash backs on purchases or vouchers for free purchases: While overall, consumers are receiving the rewards that they like, gaps still exist. Although there is a marked preference for cash back (41%), this type of reward was not available to one-third of respondents. The same holds true for vouchers, where 30% wanted to receive such rewards but only 22% were offered them.
- MFS-linked loyalty programs represent a highly untapped market: 56% of respondents were not members of an MFS-linked loyalty program. One-third of these were not offered any such program. Of unbanked respondents, who stand to benefit most from MFS-linked loyalty programs, only 22% said they were registered to one.
“The mobile financial industry is looking for ways to accelerate usage and drive growth, while delivering a consistent and simplified experience,” said Patrick McGrory, division president for Amdocs’ Emerging Offerings. “Amdocs Loyalty Management System, which we launched today, is a simple and scalable solution that enables service providers to integrate multiple loyalty programs into one wallet. It simplifies the consumer experience, while helping service providers retain and engage existing customers, attract new ones and increase mobile wallet usage.”
Amdocs today also launched the MFS Loyalty Management System, which allows MFS providers to integrate all loyalty programs and cards from various retailers, merchants, billers and so on into one mobile wallet. The loyalty management system is fully integrated into Amdocs MFS solution which holds and manages subscriber loyalty account information. It is also integrated with Amdocs MFS card management system, which can link virtual or physical loyalty cards to a loyalty program.
Supporting Resources
- Access the full research findings in the whitepaper “The Impact of Loyalty on Mobile Financial Services and Payments”
- Learn more about Amdocs Mobile Financial Services solutions
- Keep up with Amdocs news by visiting the company’s website
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About Amdocs
Amdocs is the market leader in customer experience software solutions and services for the world’s largest communications, entertainment and media service providers. For more than 30 years, Amdocs solutions, which include BSS, OSS, network control, optimization and network functions virtualization, coupled with professional and managed services, have accelerated business value for its customers by simplifying business complexity, reducing costs and delivering a world-class customer experience.
The Amdocs portfolio enables service providers to capture the world of digital immediacy by operating across digital dimensions to engage customers with personalized, omni-channel experiences; creating a diversified business to capture new revenue streams; becoming data empowered to make business and operational decisions based on insight-based and predictive analytics; and achieving service agility to accelerate the fast rollout of new technologies and hybrid network services.
Amdocs and its 25,000 employees serve customers in over 85 countries. Listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, Amdocs had revenue of $3.7 billion in fiscal 2016.
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For more information, visit Amdocs at www.amdocs.com.
Amdocs’ Forward-Looking Statement
This press release includes information that constitutes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about Amdocs’ growth and business results in future quarters. Although we believe the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be obtained or that any deviations will not be material. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to, the effects of general economic conditions, Amdocs’ ability to grow in the business markets that it serves, Amdocs’ ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses, adverse effects of market competition, rapid technological shifts that may render the Company's products and services obsolete, potential loss of a major customer, our ability to develop long-term relationships with our customers, and risks associated with operating businesses in the international market. Amdocs may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future; however, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These and other risks are discussed at greater length in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2016 filed on December 12, 2016.