7 Keys to Marketing Genius: Wireless and Clueless
The following is an excerpt from The 7 Keys to Marketing Genius by Michael Daehn
Companies selling wireless phone service spend millions to attain new customers. Besides the advertising, they entice new prospects with free or discounted phones. These phones are sold below cost, so the only way the company can break even is for the purchaser to remain a long-term customer. But what happens when the contract expires? If the current customer wants to get a new phone, they have to change companies or pay full price for a new one. There are no incentives to remain a customer or to renew the contract. Companies are more focused on spending money to get new clients than to keep the ones they have.
How many companies spend millions on slick television commercials that drive people into stores? Once in the store, disaffected, underpaid and undertrained employees treat the customer like a second-class citizen, while the advertised product is not what the commercial claims or is unavailable. Marketers should spend less on wasteful mass marketing campaigns and more on building relationships with customers at the point of sale.
DIRECTV took this to heart and made some changes. They took some of their marketing dollars and used them to enhance their customer service process. They improved their main line of personal communication between themselves and their customers: the call center. DIRECTV gave incentives to their call center workers by offering more training, benefits, and career advancement opportunities. The result was an increase in client retention and the amount of money spent on subscriptions by callers. They also won industry awards for customer service and retention.