What Do Customers Want

In this competitive CLEC market, the elusive market share is more than just a goal, it’s a business necessity.  You spend large sales dollars to win new customers and even more money to maintain your networks and services to supply you customers. 

So why is there churn? Why do you fail to gain market share and struggle to maintain your current base?  What do customers want?

Let’s go back to basic marketing principles.  Telecom is a basic necessity for all consumers.  Businesses can’t run without it and are willing to pay big bucks to keep it reliable and ubiquitous.  Telecom services for business are growing and, the more services you deploy, the more you can sell, it seems.  So why would customers look elsewhere for service?

Here are some rules to help you figure out what your customers want.

Rule 1: Reliability
The basics apply here: reliability, consistency, and meeting needs. 

As a marketing company, a strong relationship with your customers is essential, so customer service must be the number one priority.  Don’t sell it if you can’t maintain it consistently at or above your customers' expectations. 

Also, proactive be in contact with your customers when there are problems or planned service interruption events.  Consider a “No Excuse” marketing plan.  LL Bean for example, utilized this type of return policy and it grew their business to international proportions.

Rule 2:  It’s Not Always Price
Selling in a tough market tends to make a competitor hungry enough to lower prices to buy market share.  After all, what is the first thing a sales person blames is he or she can't sell?  Price competition.

If it was only about price, there would be only one supplier per industry since customers would only buy from the supplier with the lowest price.  There are many more issues than price when customers seek new suppliers. 

Reliability of telecom services is one key element, as mentioned above.  Many customers happily pay a premium for products and services if the features and services they are seeking are met to their satisfaction better. 

Perception is the key.  Have you positioned yourself to command a premium price or do you look at yourself as another commodity vendor?  If you position yourself as the least expensive vendor, you may have a hard time later selling service and quality.

Rule 3: McTelco or Boutique Provider?
Ask yourself if your company is trying to be all things to all customers.  If so, you are suffering from a delusion. 

With the pace of change in the telecom industry, no provider can keep their service people or their networks up to date with every product and service and still expect to have 100 percent reliability and coverage. McTelco-like companies believe they will be the low price, full service, everything-you-want-under-one-roof telecom provider.

But it isn't a realistic expectation.  When you get big enough to be a McTelco, you'll have too many employees to effectively control the training and customer service functions for all those products and services.  That, in turn will lead to a high dissatisfaction rate among current customers. 

After a while of this, some of your best customers will realize that McTelco isn't focused on them but rather on the race for ubiquity.  The smart competitors are the ones that build their market share on excellence in customer service and no-excuse-service provisions and leave the scorched earth sales plans to competitors who can afford the churn of unhappy customers.

Rule 4:  Market Response versus Vendor Product Push
Years ago, ISDN was the hot new telephone technology.  Vendors built the switches and software and happily pushed it into the market.

But what happened to the revenue side of the equation?  ILECs spent small fortunes advertising ISDN but few users wanted it.  It was a technology in search of a market need. 

Today, we hear about wonderful new technologies all the time and are tempted to thin: If only we could get them. 

DSL is the latest such example, but how many people do you know who actually have a DSL line successfully installed?  The reality is that it can be hard to deploy DSL because of some technological limitations such as distance from the CO and lack of conditioned loops. 

True, the infrastructure for DSL soon will be more mature, but what will come next?  The point is, don’t let a vendor or a competitor push you into a technology that you cannot support adequately.  Sometimes, a reasonable substitute service that you can support in a no-excuse service manner is preferrable.  

Before you leap at the next hot technology available from laboratories of the telecom gurus, size up your market and know that the great service doesn't come from a software upgrade or new piece of machinery.  It comes from a company-wide commitment to be a unified, no-excuse-service provider to your current customers while consistently upgrading all departments to meet the market demands of the future. 

Tamra Burgwardt is President of TJB Telecom Consultants, a firm dedicated to creating new CLECs from certification and tariffing through account set-up, interconnection project management and beta testing of first end user lines.  She can be reached at 770-805-0800