An innovator with a universal, interactive user engagement channel for mobile operators to drive revenues from network events & user behaviors: OnePIN
The Silicon Review – 2020
Companies in the mobile telecom sector are largely focused on transitioning into a more digitalized business. To be more precise, digital transformation in mobile network operators is driven by the need to be more customer centric, to improve customer engagement, and to devise new services that will drive digital revenues. With a next generation sales and marketing transformation and with the advent of digital platforms, mobile operators now have a myriad of service and engagement options available. And with mobile and web being seamlessly connected, a new path is paved for mobile telcos in the customer engagement and digital service landscape. Steered by its powerful strategic vision of “all things connected everywhere,” OnePIN continues to propel forward in the mobile social connection and advertising ecosystem – proving that the company has the ingenuity to remain a global market leader for years to come. OnePIN has nearly two decades of experience connecting people to each other and the things that matter most. With over half a billion connected people, OnePIN has demonstrated its innovation excellence within the mobile marketplace and within the customer engagement realm. OnePIN’s unique platform of services targeted at mobile operators increases digital revenues – the current focus of mobile operators’ profitability centers. OnePIN’s services also drive voice calls and SMS traffic, aid in driving data usage, enable downloads of new applications, boost top-ups and reduce churn, and allow mobile operators to play a strategic role in the mobile advertising ecosystem.
Advent of OnePIN and Impact
With more than 30 issued patents in the United States and numerous patents issued internationally for its innovative solutions, rule-breaking and risk-taking is nothing new to the OnePIN team. Over 500 million mobile subscribers have OnePIN’s software installed within their mobile devices, and OnePIN’s unique platform has processed more than one billion revenue-generating transactions for mobile operators. The company established an inter-departmental innovation framework during its nascent years as a start-up, which has proven fruitful. The number of new inventions filed each year, and the number of patents awarded by patent offices worldwide is a testament to the success of the framework in place. This year the company filed more than a dozen new innovations. Given the competitiveness in the mobile and digital spaces, protecting technology and market-leading positions has always been a priority for the company. Feyzi Celik, President, and CEO founded OnePIN in 2002. OnePIN is a venture capital-funded company, which raised over $25 million from Stage 1 Ventures, FA Technology Ventures, Egan-Managed Capital, and Greycroft Partners, through Series A-E funding rounds. The privately held company is profitable and cash-flow positive. While the company has grown from a start-up to a fully self-sustaining, cash flow positive entity over the last decade, the team still holds an entrepreneurial mindset. Team members are open to risk and are very dedicated, in addition to taking the initiative and assuming responsibility. Team members are used to breaking orthodoxies and pursuing a “rule-breaker” attitude. At OnePIN, the team fully recognizes that connectedness matters. OnePIN has always been about connecting people. Appreciating how important it is to connect people to the friends and family who matter most, OnePIN’s platform enables mobile operators to enhance the strategic value of calls, messages, and social connections. The company recently transformed its flagship people connecting solutions, launching a newly enhanced service called “Life®.”
Life is a global digital social platform that enables mobile users to easily connect with one another, share greetings and messages, and always ensure they have current information. The service provides one-click contact exchange interoperability across all mobile devices. For mobile operators, Life drives new digital revenues and provides multiple opportunities for new subscriptions and premium revenues. The service uses automated event-based triggers to intelligently suggest connecting with new friends or contacts after calls are made, or chats are started. Life’s automated triggers and platform intelligence are key differentiators leading to the successful uptake of the solution.
In the age of digital transformation, OnePIN’s Life service encourages “digital exploration” for mobile customers and drives traffic to a mobile network operator’s digital properties. Subscribers establish their Life profiles as soon as they join a mobile operator’s network. Profiles are dynamic, including multiple profile photos and contact sharing fields. Each time a subscriber makes a phone call or initiates a chat session with another mobile user, Life automatically detects this connection and asks the user if he or she wants to connect with the new friend or contact. Once connected, users can download enhanced contact cards directly via the Life digital portal and easily add these into their mobile phonebooks. Users can select photos for each connection and download the photo dynamically into their mobile phonebooks so that they can always reach Life connections – even if offline. Users are also able to record dynamic Life video greetings – viewable by all their connections.
Life is an “uber connector” – users are able to see which social networks their friends are using, and can easily launch conversations within these networks directly from the Life portal. Beyond merely receiving birthday reminders when friends and other connections have a birthday, the Life service allows users to send personalized birthday wishes directly to connections as interactive top-screen messages on the recipient’s mobile device – so they can’t be missed. The service also allows users to send unique, interactive holiday greetings to their connections. Seeing pending and historical friend connections, receiving birthday reminders, sending broadcast updates when contact information changes, and including personalized quotes and themes when sharing contact information are just a few of the features that make the Life service experience interesting and fun.
All of OnePIN’s solutions utilize a top-screen interactive interface. In the case of Life, this dynamic experience makes it easy for mobile users to connect with friends and family after specific intelligent triggering events. Users can be guided directly to the Life digital site for an enhanced experience. OnePIN’s digital social services have connected users in more than 20 countries, driving value-added service revenue for mobile operators. The solutions are frictionless – Users don’t need to download any apps, reply to SMS, remember USSD codes, open any emails, or set up chat sessions. This simplicity removes obstacles and has led to a large user base. Further, OnePIN’s solutions are universal – any mobile user can utilize the services on any mobile handset, including any smartphone or feature phone. OnePIN recognizes the importance of creating a solution that can be used by any mobile subscriber. And while Life, in particular, enhances data usage, the service can also be deployed in a manner that even subscribers with limited or no data plans can still participate in the Life community.
Recognizing that personal data protection is paramount, messages are encrypted, and OnePIN’s core technology is based on security standards defined within the mobile industry. Subscribers are always in control of their data.
The company has also been working with brands and content providers. It is currently extending its platform solutions to enable mobile subscribers to connect with everything that matters most to them easily…in Life.
