The Future of Video: OTT, Pay TV, and Digital Media conference will be held December 14-16 and brings together industry leaders in the OTT market to share insights on consumers behaviors and preferences and the challenges for the video industry in meeting these expectations. Dan Hurwitz, Chief Revenue Officer at Penthera, recently shared how to prevent customer churn and what business looks like for OTT in a pandemic:

What is the impact of the Pandemic on consumer viewing and your business?
The Pandemic gave Penthera some really unique insights around consumer viewing and actually dispelled a popular myth about why users download video content from mobile apps.

Many people think that downloading is primarily for traveling viewers who have limited connectivity on planes or trains and can’t stream. But during the first wave of lockdowns, as rates of travel plummeted across the board, we actually saw growth in downloading as more people downloaded more content across our clients.

This confirms that there are actually more use cases for downloading beyond travel, and that many users see offline downloads as a way to ensure they don’t encounter streaming issues like buffering and low quality when they watch. Given that networks have been overloaded as people have begun to use their home wifi networks for work, school, socializing and more during the Pandemic, it’s interesting that people have begun downloading more content so they don’t have to worry about having their entertainment interrupted. It’s completely changed how we think about the value of downloading.

What are the key drivers of customer churn? What are the best practices to better engage and retain customers?
Streaming frustrations are a big reason users churn, even though it’s often not the fault of the provider that a user is experiencing something like buffering or lag. The insights team at Penthera released a report in Q2 this year that surveyed consumers and asked how they react when they encounter streaming problems like buffering on mobile. They found that in the U.S. 40% abandon the stream, 39% leave for a different entertainment or video app, and 3% actually go so far as to cancel their subscription.

It’s important to make content easy to watch on any device, whether on CTV, PC, or mobile. Penthera released a report with Parks Associates last month about how consumers watch online video, and it revealed that only half of viewing hours are spent with CTV: 23% are spent on mobile and 27% are spent on PC. Users don’t differentiate your offering by device: most consumers watch across several devices throughout a given day and they expect an equal experience on all of them. That means it’s critical to not focus solely on the CTV experience but to make viewing seamless across the board. Because if users have a poor experience 1 in 4 times they try to watch your content, it will be really difficult to win their loyalty.

Register now for the Future of Video conference!