Loialitatea consumatorului? Nu ma faceti sa rad!

Loyalty? Don’t make me laugh

The telecom consumer is still seen to work at the lowest common denominator — price sensitivity
Stephen McClelland, editorial director, Telecommunications™ International
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marketeers routinely spend a lot of time and probably — because they outsource it — millions of dollars on trying to understand the consumer. Focus groups, analyses, telemarketing and the rest fill their world. It is no different in telecom, although it still seems that, as opposed to making biscuits or brewing beer, the consumer is still a somewhat distant creature, too exotic for most people to comprehend.

Recently, I met a telecom consultant who had in fact worked in biscuit manufacturing and marketing and could still remember the relatively evident surprise she felt when she found that telecom people do not really consider their consumer lifestyles as being very important.

But this lack of knowledge does not seem to stop providers going all out to win customer ‘loyalty’. I’ve just returned from an interesting trip but one in which I found that telecom machismo is still alive and kicking around the world. Take, for example, one Asian mobile operator who recently launched a free calls campaign in an already overheated market. Overnight, more than a million people switched provider, but the operator CEO confessed that he would be happy if as few as a quarter of these new subscribers stayed with his company more than three months.

I’d rather be in biscuits. Just why providers should behave in such a suicidal way is baffling enough although it can probably be explained by game theory in that if one does it, everyone has to do it. No one it seems expects loyalty in such a price conscious market, but price-at-any-cost strategies are precisely the ones that ultimately take that very loyalty away. If everyone behaved like telecom subscribers seem to, most fast-moving consumer goods suppliers (it seems to me) would go broke overnight. Brewers and biscuit makers do depend extremely heavily on consumer loyalty to their brand or range of brands. Moreover, with some notable exceptions, the sub-brand (product brand) is the one that is important; most people neither know nor care the provenance of the manufacturer or supplier, at least in a mass market. In a premium market, that provenance represents a connection to prestige and is trusted.

The difference (or certainly one of the differences) between something like brewing and biscuit making on the one hand and telecom on the other is that for most of us beer and biscuits are relatively understandable and everyday items. Telecom — with its continued emphasis on technology at the expense of consumer familiarity — is not. And perhaps that is why all this technological efforts and wizardry ends up, well, being heavily discounted. After so much push, the consumer is seen to work at the lowest common denominator — price sensitivity.

Whilst the industry often talks the talk about user friendliness and education, it doesn’t usually walk the walk. Products remain bafflingly complex to use — even getting a profile set up with my mobile operator last month proved a bridge too far as an online activity. And this is probably where things will have to change. For the industry to progress in any real sense, there has to be more than lip service given to this issue. But, how intractable do things have to get before someone wakes up and starts pushing things in a proactive way? Many parts of the industry — even the consumer-facing ones — have been used to having their own way for probably too long a time. And for various internal reasons, it has not been particularly desirable to stop the train. So, far from crying about it, if telecom players want loyalty, it should teach people to understand what it means.

Regulatorul nostru national ANRC inca nu a introdus obligativitatea definirii calitatii unor servicii, voce, date, availability, etc si nu obliga operatorii sa specifice in ce categorie se incadreaza:
Speedo

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

(Ex:Omul de pe strada nu stie ca la CNX de exemplu plateste minutul de convorbire ca si cum ar fi calitate premium cand de fapt el primeste un canal comprimat pentru care in USA ar fi trebuit sa fie "lower rates" pentru ca acolo exista un regulator care urmareste lucrurile astea).

un punct de vedere cu care sunt de acord 100%. o sa fie naspa sa suni pe cineva cu 074 si sa vezi ca de fapt nu se consuma din minute... 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Portabilitatea nu e o piatra de incercare pentru operatori mai degraba e pentru clientii lor.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

daca o sa fiu abonat Zapp si o sa vreau sa trec pe Orange o sa pot sa-mi pastrez numarul ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1. care operatori s-au orientat preponderent pe "minute in retea" si implicit vor avea probleme indiferent de campania de educare a clientilor?
2. cati utilizatori vor folosi acel numar gratuit sa afle reteaua?
Portabilitatea nu e o piatra de incercare pentru operatori mai degraba e pentru clientii lor.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

daca o sa fiu abonat Zapp si o sa vreau sa trec pe Orange o sa pot sa-mi pastrez numarul ?

scuzati-mi insistenta si lipsa de cunostiinte dar Zapp si Orange nu folosesc tehnologii diferite ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>