In a recent post, we explored a (somewhat) idealised vision of a fan’s journey and experience at Euro 2024.
Everything we discussed is possible today, but, in the main, has yet to be realised. We wanted to show how MNOs could elevate the customer experience.
Of course, the tournament has now concluded – well done Spain – bad luck England! – but what a day Sunday 14th July was for sports fans! In addition to the football, the viewing public had to contend with a host of other activities. One the same day, the sports enthusiast could choose from top-class action elsewhere:
- The men’s final at Wimbledon
- The Copa America (many leading stars based in Europe were involved, and ardent fans like to track their favourites)
- The Tour De France reached its 15th Stage
- And, the first cricket test between England and the West Indies could have (but didn’t) reached its fifth and final day
So, there was a lot to capture the attention on Super Sunday! Many fans will have wanted to stay ahead of other events, while focusing on the Euro 2024 final. This means that we need to consider what else is happening, when we think about the experiences that can be delivered: any fan journey should not only be geared to the main event, but also include options for enhanced experience around others in which they might be interested.
It’s not just anticipated experiences – events change, and we need to stay ahead
Of course, there are other factors to consider. For example, it was noticeable that, at some games, disappointed fans made their way to the exit before the final whistle had blown. And, with no right of re-entry, these fans missed out on surprising comebacks – imagine if their mobile provider, noticing their direction of travel had intervened with alerts and guided them back to a viewing experience, even if they could not return to their seats?
In addition, for those fortunate fans whose team entered the next round – what about suggestions for booking rooms, grabbing tickets, arranging travel and more? In other words, as the tournament progresses, there are new, often contextual opportunities for engagement with your fans that are spending time there.
Your marketing team could have brainstormed these months in advance – but to deliver, you’ll have to ensure that your platforms and systems are aligned with new opportunities, and also to remember what else is on the sporting calendar, so you can integrate new content to which a subscriber might have signed up separately and which complements their extended Euro 2024 journey.
In other words, the fan journey is fluid. It’s not a simple linear workflow – even with all of the good things we covered last time. It’s one that has dynamic characteristics, and which is linked to context and a broader event horizon. This kind of expanded workflow is, of course, more ambitious, and it depends on automating each step, adding possibilities and options that are shaped by events and changes in circumstances and fortunes.
Alignment with other, relevant stakeholders is essential
Now, considering new opportunities for engagement that are driven by context is, of course, the ideal – and it’s exactly where we should be headed as an industry. But, there remain some basic problems to consider.
influx of fans at different places is easily predictable, so you can automate the provision of additional capacity in anticipation of the expected surge, so you can ensure that your RAN is fully powered up, and perhaps even supplemented by temporary infrastructure that you may have deployed long in advance.
But what happens if things go wrong? A big surprise to many international visitors was the poor performance of the host nation’s prized railways – Deutsche Bahn. In a series of well-publicised incidents, many stations suffered from extreme congestion and delays.
This led to large numbers of fans essentially being trapped at various pinch-points – so could MNOs have helped through advance warnings, the supply of alternative routes and more? And, could they also respond to an emerging situation, ramping up coverage to cater for the growing volume of passengers caught affected by the situation?
While the operators may have detected the growing number of people entering a specific location (a tram stop, or railway station), the transportation providers would also know about problems that were emerging – and could have shared this information with other partners.
Here’s a clear case in which different – but essential – stakeholders – should have automated the exchange of information and the supply of data to help ease the situation and reroute passengers safely.
Build the right experiences, for all fan journey and events with automation from We Are CORTEX
So, for an MNO, while it’s easy to see the opportunity to enhance a fan’s experience (whether a roaming customer or a domestic subscriber), but it’s also possible to glimpse the potential for automation to extend to the information systems of related stakeholders – not just the stadiums, as we described, but also transportation authorities, booking companies, city governance, broadcasters – even the police.
MNOs can also bring experiences together so that, say, football fans that also like tennis and cycling can have an enriched experience covering all their interests at the same time, so no one misses out – adding new engagement channels and touchpoints during the tournament and considering other, related events that took place at the same time.
All this depends on automation – but it’s all possible with We Are CORTEX. Our automation solutions enable multi-domain, cross network automation, bringing stakeholders together to benefit your customers – and easily extend to embrace IT platforms and interfaces available from other providers outside the telco ecosystem, but which are essential for the kind of experience the eager fan should come to expect.
