Designing relevance in telco

In April 2026, Manyone’s Guido Woska sat down with Tim Heeb, Experience Design Lead at Swisscom, to explore how telco brands can create new relevance, achieve growth beyond the core business, and build loyalty that lasts.

• Price and performance are no longer differentiators: Falling prices and ever-improving network performance have commoditized connectivity, making it difficult for premium telcos to justify higher pricing purely on quality or speed.

• The “more is more” model is breaking down: Incremental performance gains (such as faster downloads) are becoming invisible to customers, meaning added technical value doesn’t necessarily translate into perceived customer value. In a market where speed and features can feel identical, experience design is the real lever.

• Future differentiation lies in relevance, not just infrastructure: Telcos must shift toward trust, experience, and lifestyle integration, rather than just network capabilities.

• Trust as competitive currency: Trust can only be achieved if it's designed for. Built through safety, transparency, and reliability, trust is the most valuable differentiator, and is at the heart of building loyalty.