VAS that boost productivity. A win-win for telcos and their small business customers
![VAS core offering](https://dqmeprwm.cdn.imgeng.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Core-offering-hero.png)
Small business customers no longer want fast and secure connectivity from their telco provider – they need and demand it as standard. 73% of small businesses have a website and for most, their operations are now run at least partially online.
Whether that’s taking orders from an e-commerce store, managing customer relationships or logging payments using accounting software. These and a myriad of other use cases have made fast and secure connectivity a must have for business owners today.
Data as the new currency: A 5G revolution
From New York to Buenos Aires, Cape Town and Sydney, we’ve seen rapid improvements in cellular network technology in recent years. Indeed, global market penetration of 5G is expected to increase to 64% by 2030. With this we’re seeing gigabytes of data become the de facto selling point across most phone tariffs.
The other standout feature is security. Think spam blocking, identity monitoring and phishing attack protection. All intended to give peace of mind in an increasingly online world.
As telco operators have built their core product offering around connectivity and security, it’s become commoditized. Cue a race to the bottom on tariff pricing, the same handsets being offered by all providers and increased customer churn.
Navigating the VAS landscape: What small businesses really need
In the face of this challenge, strategy, marketing and product teams are looking to VAS as a way of differentiating themselves and standing out in a crowded marketplace. And while some small business owners are interested in perks similar to those offered to the consumer market, many are looking for digital products that boost productivity.
For a telco looking to reduce churn among their current customer base, acquire new customers or increase ARPU across the board, coupling VAS that boost productivity with their core offering can be an effective way to differentiate their small business proposition.
When we talk about VAS that improve productivity for a small business, we’re talking about web presence software, cloud storage, email marketing software, project management tools, e-commerce software and a CRM.
Tailoring digital products for small business success
The challenge is to find digital products that have been specifically designed for small business customers – rather than enterprise solutions that have simply been rebranded. It’s these tools that will genuinely help improve productivity, in turn boosting retention and fuelling growth in this potentially lucrative segment.
This idea of designing products specifically for small business customers is at the centre of everything we do at BaseKit. Every digital product in our portfolio, from our site builder to e-commerce platform, booking software and customer management application, is easy to use.
This year our product and development teams invested significant time and resources into improving the onboarding process in our e-commerce product, BaseKit Store. Small business owners looking to open an online store can now be set up and selling products or services after completing five simple and distraction-free steps.
When considering future product releases, activation rates are one of the key metrics we review. The stronger these figures are, the higher the ARPU and retention rates are for our partners.
Our white labelled digital products give partners full control over pricing, positioning and strategy. This gives them the freedom to develop their own version of the ‘productivity boosting VAS wrapped around fast and secure connectivity’ narrative specific to their local market.
We’re on a mission for tech democracy for small businesses – are you in? Request a demo of our software, or get in touch to discuss what a BaseKit partnership could look like.