Small Markets Don’t Mean Small Offerings: Staying Competitive in the Digital Era

Regional service providers have an advantage over the national carrier: they have to, and get to, think local. They get to build strong relationships, offer great local coverage, and have better price points tuned to their specific market. It’s worked out so far — Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) members connect over 130 million people and counting. Many of those customers are in places national carriers can’t reach. They often reside in areas where wireless connectivity is their only option for internet access. In other words, CCA members and regional carriers play an understated, but essential role in making their world more connected.

US Cellular was, for many years, one of the largest carriers in the USA, but a regional carrier nonetheless. T-Mobile’s recently announced intent to acquire US Cellular is a harbinger of one way how the large national carriers are coming for the regional providers’ business. In related news, AT&T struck a deal in 2023 with the National Content & Technology Cooperative to become the wireless carrier for nearly 700 MVNOs. All of the big three have launched competitively-priced digital brands with a national footprint. It’s clear the regional carriers’ status quo will not remain so “quo” for long. The time to adapt is now.

Digitize to Modernize

Regional carriers have to tap into the unique value you offer — the local roots and community connections that have been your bedrock for so long — and combine it with a digital focus that can move faster and provide more value than national carriers.

Regional carriers can compete against these new incursions through digital business processes. Digital platforms integrate readily and quickly into the carrier’s existing infrastructure, whatever its architecture and whether it is on premise or in the cloud. Digital platforms can simplify new product launches such that they happen in days rather than months, giving you the agility to quickly strike back when a new national carrier service plan pops up. Their real-time nature means you can offer full transparency, not just a list of charges that add up quickly.

Here are three ways regional carriers can use these digital platforms to both expand their offers and make them more locally-specific.

First, make it easier for customers to connect with their communities. This could mean supporting multi-line bundles for customers who don’t need unlimited data and therefore don’t want to pay for it. Alternatively, it could be supporting users transferring unused allotments of minutes, messages, or megabytes of data between users — even if they’re not on the same plan. Finally, it could mean providing the customer a path to do something different with their unused allotments of minutes, messages, or megabytes, like donating them to local causes near and dear to their hearts.

Second, you don’t need to be a big, national powerhouse to give your customers more control. Digital platforms support features like real-time spending information that is essential to customers configuring their own plans and receiving the notifications they need to manage those plans. It can be as easy as sending a text offer to top up their data allocation or an offer to reconfigure their plans to support more data instead of more minutes. This kind of high-touch service helps you maintain your relationship with your customer while driving new revenue.

Third and finally, give customers benefits tailored to them. Bundle fixed wireless access broadband with Netflix, Spotify, or other big brands and more localized offers. Think about offering a local home security service specialized for remote areas rather than a national company. A flexible digital platform also leaves room for incorporating IoT device connectivity into your services, like moisture sensors.

There is space for regional carriers to thrive. The role you play in connecting remote regions, tribal reservations, and hard-to-reach areas isn’t going away. In fact, the importance of the reliable, quality access you provide is more important than ever in the digital economy. You’ve taken the time to become an integral part of your community, and they know you as well as you know them. This isn’t a hopeless fight with big companies.

Let digital platforms be your secret weapon against national carriers.

—

NOTE: This post was adapted from an article that appeared in The Fast Mode, August 14, 2024.