Analysis of an online Customer Journey through an international niche market. Case study of the company Calltic.

Abstract

The African telecommunications sector has experienced a very fast growth and transformation over the past twenty years. The mobile phone penetration has boosted the market and people have started to leave traditional landlines in the lurch, reaching 46% of the population (GSMA, 2023) with a mobile subscription today in Sub-Saharan Africa, representing 8% of the global Gross domestic product (GSMA, 2023). The sector has been driven by both local and international investments in network infrastructures, expanding internet connectivity and mobile money services. However, some regions are still facing challenges such as limited rural coverage, regulatory restrictions and affordability issues. Still, the telecommunications sector in Africa remains a great opportunity for additional expansion. A growing market tends to be victim of frauds for two main reasons: the first is the lack of regulations in proportion with the natural growth of the market itself; the second one is the constant growing number of usersthat creates attractive opportunities for fraudsters. African operators constantly have to deal with fraudsters trying to steal their money thanks to a multitude of means, one of them being the bypass fraud. This fraud has a significant impact on the networks with 11% of the total fraud in the telecommunications sector in 2019 (CFCA, 2021). Two years later, it even became the fourth most important fraud with 3.11 billion of dollars which is around 2.90 billion in euros1 ) in the entire year of 2021 (CFCA, 2021). Solutions were provided to fight this fraud and create business opportunities for companies, therefore becoming a niche market. Nowadays, Calltic is amongst the many worldwide options providers. This paper aims to analyze the online customer journey in such a niche market, taking a deep look at the online challenges and technical difficulties faced by such providers and the cultural differences with the African operators in a fast-growing digital world. The recommendations proposed are based on successful traditional and more recent digital marketing strategies, taking into account Calltic’s current online visibility challenges in this international niche market. A detailed and strategic analysis of the company Calltic, the case study chosen for this paper, brought to light the key tools to create an online strategy. A first exploration of the current situation abled the need to analyze the internal parts of the company such as the strengths and weakness, and then the external parts, such as opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis). Moreover, an analysis of the STP and 4Ps strategies were made to understand the segmentation, targeting and positioning of the company. Then, the creation of different personas, based on specific African customers, enables Calltic to have a better understand of their own customers and potential ones. Moreover, a complete analysis of the customer journey conducted to precious information to understand the missing points that could bring the company to a more successful online experience.