Different Strokes to Different Folks
The title of this post is a pretty common phrase used by marketers and businessmen in general, but how much of it is practiced was a debatable issue in the past. But things are not same any more, marketers and businesses have realized its time such theories are put in practice.
Telecom Operators are one of the early adopters of applying this Theory in Practice. Most of the Telecom Operators I have met had this particular thread in common -”How do we ensure the communication channels are used effectively, importantly how the ‘abuse’ can be arrested”.You might be wondering what the word “abuse” is doing in this context.
Well, study shows not-so-high-value customers that move to a new town have the tendency to call the contact-center and talk for no rhyme or reason, this chokes the channel bandwidth and the Telcos have been struggling to arrest this issue. Another kind of customers that abuse the channel are those who can never be satisfied or pleased by the service provider, there are cases where such customers have called more than 27 times in a month to lodge complaints.
One of the leading telecom operators in the United States has reached a stage to wind the latter scenario by running a marketing campaign to the calling customers to stop calling the contact-center OR get ready for a disconnected phone-line. In my opinion, a task that deserves a loud Kudos!
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
Arun,
If you are talking about Sprint, they actually did not threaten to disconnect the lines , however terminated a few customer contracts , as the company was not able to service their requests. The law of the land does not allow customer discrimination. In the US , in most cases you will not be able to reach a live operator, until the automated system is unable to solve your problem. During most week days , it takes an average of 20 mins to get a live person from ATT Wirless.
Hey Alwyn,
Yep! I am talking about the operator you refered.
It is not about the problem of whether the call terminates at a live operator or an automated system, either ways there is a loss of network bandwidth, which sometimes is quite expensive.
My point is this, any organization’s customer can be categorized into four distinct groups.
A) Profitable
B) Potentially Profitable
C) Currently Value Neutral
D) Bleeders
If the customer chocking the network by raising stupid issues happened to be from Bleeders category, in my opinion, its imperative a threshold is set and if the customer happen to violate it, send him a warning note.
I saw this horrible video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clsxNj7JIWI) in YouTube a few days ago, please watch it without worrying about the content/subject presented. Notice what happens at the end of the video. Finish watching the video and resume reading on..
If such treatments were to be applied on customers that often raise tickets or complains about not-so-important issues all the time, a similar approach from the video should be embraced, and its surely worth an attempt.
The problem is there is such an overload of content these days . My policy is to stick to content that is substantial and authoritative. There are too many people saying things that just can’t be substantiated.
When it comes to Telecom and wireless companies, they are some of the most profitable . ( atleast in the US ) In the us , all post paid customers HAS to fall under a monthly plan and a yearly contract. Sprint and Cingular contracts are generally a 2 year contract and if the customer decided to leave they have to pay an early termination fee of more than $200 . The lowest monthly ( voice only ) plan you can find will be a $ 39.00 plan ( and these companies charge you a 25% taxes and other fees per month ) which including taxes will be about $ 50 per month. A customer has “x” number of any time minutes a month and has to pay 40cents per minute , if they exceed. So there is no business , that is as profitable than the cell phone business. You have guaranteed revenues based on paying customers. People normally do not default on their cell phone bills, if a cell phone company blacklists a customer, most other companies will not touch the customer either.
In some cases (like Cingular ) companies have exclusive tie ups with equipment makers, in the case of the Iphone , the company sold exclusively through Cingular and customers who bought the Iphone have to choose from a plan that starts at $ 70 ( including taxes ) per MONTH for TWO years. In such a case, everything and every customer is profitable, it just comes down to percentages.
Arub,
By there way .. here is some facts about Sprint.
For the first quarter of 2007, it reported a loss of 220,000 post-paid monthly subscribers–customers who pay monthly. This was the third quarter in a row the company had a substantial loss of these types of customers. The company has consistently had one of the worst churn rates in the wireless industry. At the end of the first quarter of 2007, Sprint reported a churn rate of 2.7 percent.
After the news broke about customer terminations, more and more people are deserting the company . I think it was just a bad decisions considering the fact, the cost of acquiring a wireless customer is said to be in the region of $250- $ 300 .
Leave your response!
About Three Sixty
As far as the audience for this Blog is concerned, it is essentially for folks associated with CMO' Office in large Retail B2C Businesses - This includes Marketing Managers, Product Managers, Marketing Consultants, Campaign Managers, Marketing Business Analysts, Segment/Channel Managers. The Second-level include CIO office members, Process Managers and technology consultants that are into providing or maintaining marketing solution.
Diclaimer
All the views and opinions presented in this Blog are of the Author and IS/ARE not of his employer or clients or any business associates.
All trademarks, slogans, logos represented, used, or referred to in this site are the property of their respective owners.
All Top Marketing
Dilbert Today
Other Sites
Blogroll
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
DISCLAIMER
All the views and opinions presented in this Blog are of the Author and IS/ARE not of his employer or clients or any business associates.
All trademarks, slogans, logos represented, used, or referred to in this site are the property of their respective owners.
If you wish to contact, please Click Here
Most Commented
Most Viewed