Wireless Providers: What’s Your MHz?
Monday, July 12, 2004
If you’ve been following this blog for the past month, you’ll remember my frustration with AT&T Wireless in my post about loyalty versus appreciation.
This weekend, in an irony of decent proportion, my service improved drastically, along with my annoyance with the company. Let me explain.
In Decmember of 2003, I purchased a new “smart phone” from AT&T Wireless, in the hopes that I wouldn’t have to carry around two devices—the device was going to serve as my PDA as well as my cell phone. The Motorola MPx200 is AT&T’s current flip-phone offering in that arena.
I moved to Minneapolis in the spring of 2004, and noticed a considerable drop in service quality. I had dropped calls in dozens of locations: downtown, Uptown, outside the city, in the city, in the car...everywhere. I called customer service to find out if they had any plans to upgrade or better the GSM service in MN, because I figured I’d move back to TDMA, if there were no plans in the near future to improve the state of reception quality.
I was told that I should wait just thirty more days, because the company was making a major announcement, and drastically increasing and improving their GSM network.
So, I waited.
Sure enough, in May 2004, I received a note from AT&T Wireless saying that they had exponentially increased their GSM coverage through partnerships with other carriers, and that in order to use the service, “..you, Mr. Menon, have to do nothing—your plan will automatically use the new enhancements.”
I could swear that I had even more dropped calls after that.
I called customer service again, and spoke to a very polite lady who took a look at my account, and said that everything looked good: I had a good phone, an appropriate plan, and she wasn’t sure why I was having difficulty. She suggested, very nicely, that I try to turn the phone off and on again. I replied, equally politely, that I did that every day.
Dead end.
Until this weekend. I was at the Mall of America looking for new clothes (I dropped four inches off my waist in the past six months—more on the marketing machine behind that later,) when I happened to wander past the AT&T Wireless store. I decided I’d go in, cancel my service, and switch to Verizon, located just a few stores down.
Jeff, the sales rep who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, took a look at my phone, listened to my issue, and smiled broadly. Turns out that the Mpx200 does not work on the 850 MHz network. It only uses the 1900 and 1150 networks, and 90% of the service enhancements use the 850 network. He was so convincing that instead of leaving the company, I bought a new phone to test it out.
Sure enough, he was right. 4 bars all the way home.
What frustrates the dickens out of me is that AT&T Wireless had all the data to upsell me a new phone, increase my satistfaction, and strengthen a relationship. They knew, for instance:
- My phone type—they knew I had a phone which didn’t work with the new service rollout.
- My service call code, which identifies the category of complaint.
- My usage areas, and how that related to their enhancement.
If they had just personalized their communication in the note of May 2004, I’d be a customer with a completely different story right now. They spend $100MM a year on their advertising campaigns. What do you think personalizing a high-response communcation would have cost?
Here’s why I think I don’t get any such communication from AT&T, and that my hold times on their customer service line always tops twenty minutes, and that their advertising is all about new account acquisition: 2-year service contracts.
AT&T Wireless’ typical customer cannot afford the $250 or so it would take to switch providers. In terms of hard ROI, there’s more immediate benefit in acquiring new customers, than there is in keeping old ones. It’s a short-sighted viewpoint that will be the failing of the company.
And that’s a predicition from a frustrated top-end customer, as well as a professional customer relationship marketer.
Cultural Context in Loyalty Initiatives
Some brands are cultural phenomenona. They serve not just as the counduit to a product or service, but fulfill a deeper, greater need that customers have, one that satisfies a more intangible yearning. In the book Trading Up: The New American Luxury, Neil Fiske and Micheal Silverstein conducted a survey of “New Luxury” buying habits, and categorized those intagibles into:
- Taking Care Of Me: Goods that make them feel better about themselves immediately.
- Connecting: Things that make them feel more attractive, connected, and foster a sense of belonging.
- Questing: Experiences that make the consumer feel like they’re venturing out, and pushing personal boundaries.
- Individual Style: Goods and services that provide self-expression and signaling.
Loyalty initiatives by companies that provide these intangibles can’t afford to follow the traditional mold of rewards, points and unrelated merchandise. It’s vital that they focus on extending the overall brand experience into their loyalty services and benefits. I call this moving from Transactional Loyalty to Relationship-based Loyalty.
Rated R, by Parental Permission
So, I realize that I’m on this movie theme, but I couldn’t help it. My colleague Russ sent out an email about a card that’s being offered by GKC Theatres that’s causing all sorts of controversy. Essentially, it allows parents to pre-allow their children into R-rated movies by the purchase and signature of a “permission card.”
CBS News has a pretty comprehensive story about it.
The implications?
Well, for one, ticket sales. Not that they’d go up. I think, frankly, they may drop. If major chains were to follow suit, parents who don’t want to be dragged to comic-book movies or Adam Sandler flicks may end up just getting the card so that they could get a massage at the spa, or spend more time shopping at the mall. Another reason sales might drop is because kids, who perpetrate most of the “show-sliding” (slipping into another theatre for a double-feature without going out and buying a new ticket) today, won’t have an adult to stop them.
It’ll be an interesting trend to watch.
Hollywood Product Placements Done Right.
Monday, July 05, 2004
Steven Spielberg's The Terminal is a modern case study in brand development and product placement for consumer companies. From United Airlines to Burger King, major product and service brands have bartered promotional dollars for a place in film history. This isn't a new trend. Companies have been working deals with Hollywood for ages -- here's a short exploration of what works, and what doesn't.
Saul Bass—Marketer By Design.
Saturday, July 03, 2004
The upcoming exhibit of Saul Bass’ work at London’s superb Design Museum (opens July 17) has inspired me to start a new category in this blog: one to celebrate innovators and non-traditional shapers of modern-day marketing.
Saul Bass was born in the Bronx in 1920. The son of an emigré furrier, Mr. Bass was a child with creative gifts destined for greatness. Starting out as a traditional commercial artist, he discovered his true calling, and single-handedly created a new marketing medium in what was considered then, the unlikliest of venues: movie posters.
It ws his work for Preminger and Hitchcock, among others, that turned movie posters into an art form, and would inspire generations to come. A little known fact about Saul is that he also designed some of the world’s most recognizable corporate identities and logos.
- Read Mr. Bass’ bio at the Design Museum Web site.
- More details at MSN Celebrities.
- Unofficial Saul Bass design site.
Design has too much of a fluffy context in marketing today. Too often, the context of good design and art is considered to be icing on a strategic cake. How often have you, in your own organization, said, “Let’s get the strategy right first, we can worry about what it looks like later”?
See, most times, and companies continue to prove it daily, marketing lives in the delivery of a strategic vision. Consumers tend to differentiate between offers and competing cries for attention by gravitating towards what floats their boat. Visual identity isn’t just fluff—properly used, it can be a powerful weapon to help drive what gets you in the front door: a willingness to listen, or look.