Interview
Despite decades of technological change, from early mobile devices to eSIM, the core telco retail experience has remained largely static. For Christopher Krywulak, CEO and founder of iQmetrix, the industry now faces the harsh reality of a long-delayed transformation, with raising customer expectations and rapid AI advances pushing operators towards a more holistic retail model.
Speaking to Total Telecom, Krywulak shed light on the broken customer retail experience, organisational inertia, and why operators must embrace AI and hybrid retail models.
Fragmented and frustrating
The mobile industry has long suffered from a persistent failure to connect digital and physical channels into a seamless journey. Despite operators investing heavily in apps and online tools, the in-store experience often remains disconnected from the online experience.
“The retail experience fundamentally still hasn’t changed significantly since the first introduction of mobile phones,” said Krywulak. “It was very transactional and, from a carrier perspective, we have not yet really shifted. There’s no real appetite from telcos to take the lead and bridge their systems.”
This fragmentation is most visible when customers move between channels. Journeys that begin online frequently collapse in-store, resulting in a frustrating customer experience.
“Telcos have always been so focused on their networks that the channel is something of an afterthought. In their minds, it’s just the part at the end of the transaction, where it really needs to be part of the whole flow,” said Krywulak. “Our best-in-class retailers create a continuous experience that moves from online to in-store seamlessly. That’s a great experience and it generates loyalty.”
A ‘phygital’ future
Of course, addressing this challenge is no small feat. The telco industry has long discussed the challenges and benefits of creating a seamless digital–physical retail experience, but few have truly embraced the approach.
“There is awareness that this customer experience really matters, but it has not really been solved at scale yet for telcos,” said Krywulak. “There’s been much talk of multi-channel, omnichannel, but I like the term ‘phygital’ – it literally blends the digital and physical together.”
In practice, this means ensuring that the same systems and data underpin both environments. Key customer interactions, such as checking upgrade eligibility, trade-in value, or product availability, should be consistent regardless of channel.
“A lot of the plumbing that we do at iQmetrix is ensuring that the physical orchestration level is the same as the digital,” Krywulak explained. “We need to be able to hand off from one service platform to the other while retaining the customers’ identity to deliver a unified experience.”
Culture, not technology, is the primary barrier
While legacy systems and siloed data are often cited as the main obstacles to delivering a ‘phygital’ channel experience, Krywulak argues that organisational structure and mindset are equally significant barriers. Operators are used to their various departments operating largely independent, each with its own priorities and little motivation to work across teams. This, Krywulak says, makes it inherently challenging to deliver a consistent customer experience.
“They have their sales team, their marketing team, and their IT team, but no one’s really working on the shared strategy,” he said, describing a lack of ownership over the end-to-end customer experience.
This fragmentation is further entrenched by telcos’ tendency to approach change incrementally, aiming to solve problems in isolation rather than redesigning journeys holistically.
“There’s been a bottom-up reductionist approach to retail,” explained Krywulak. “They do a piece at a time, rather than thinking about how the system works as a whole.”
For Krywulak, this is a fundamental error, arguing that operators’ strategies should begin by defining the desired customer experience and expanding from there.
“What kind of experience do you want your customer to have? What problems do they have and how can you solve it for them? These are the key questions to ask, rather than leading with technology,” said Krywulak.
This lack of a top-down, experience-led strategy contrasts sharply with best-in-class retailers, like Apple, who design their retail strategy around the user journey from the outset
Apple, frequently cited as a benchmark, exemplifies a model where digital and physical interactions are tightly integrated and designed around the user journey from the outset.
“Apple is really the ‘North Star’ for where telco should be headed,” said Krywulak. “The company really understands that the digital and physical should be considered a single, unique final experience for customers. They are creating brand theatre in their stores. When customers come to your store regularly because they trust you to solve problems, not just sell products, then there’s so much commercial opportunity.”
Agentic commerce will demand change
The next phase of retail disruption is rapidly approaching in the form of agentic AI, where digital agents can act on behalf of customers to navigate purchasing decisions.
In this model, the customer journey increasingly begins outside traditional telco channels, with AI tools aggregating options and guiding decisions. This presents both an opportunity and a threat for the telcos. Those that adapt quickly can capitalise on a new route to customer acquisition, while those that fail to expose their offerings via APIs risk being excluded from these new buying pathways.
At the same time, these AI agents will play a growing role within retail operations, supporting both customer journeys and employee workflows.
“Shopping is not far from beginning at the AI agent level […] Agents will orchestrate the entire retail journey, from answering customer questions to building personalised packages,” said Krywulak.
This will inevitably reshape the role of physical stores. While Krywulak admits that there will “likely be fewer physical stores” in the future, he sees stores evolving to focus less on transactions and more on solving complex customer needs, from repairs to upgrades and advice. At the same time, they may double as logistics points, enabling faster fulfilment for online orders.
“I see telcos having large flagship stores that are full service, offering not only basic retail and device support but unique hybrid experiences,” he predicts. “Telecoms’ complexity makes it ideal for the mixture of the physical and digital in retail. That’s not going to change.”
Learn more about how iQmetrix is helping telcos bridge digital and physical retail at https://www.iqmetrix.com/.
Christopher Krywulak is CEO and founder of iQmetrix
iQmetrix is a global provider of Interconnected Commerce software solutions for telecom retail. Interconnected Commerce is an AI-native telecom commerce platform that acts as a system of intelligence. It replaces fragmented legacy stacks with a modern, modular operating layer, connecting telcos, retailers, and OEMs into one flow across channels and markets. The result is less complexity, lower cost, and the speed to move ahead.
For 26 years, we’ve been passionate about helping the leading brands in telecom to grow by providing best-in-class software, services, and expertise that enables them to adapt and thrive. Our solutions power $17BN in sales annually, handling nearly 53 million invoices and more than 28 million activations, and are used by more than 370,000 telecom retail professionals across almost 1,000 clients. iQmetrix is a privately held software-as-a-service (SaaS) company with employees in Canada, the U.S., India, and Europe.
For more information, please visit www.iqmetrix.com.
