Sunday, April 5. 2009Does Exetel Need Any More Customers?John Linton Annette raised this point over dinner last night. She has been doing the periodic personnel reviews which combine disussing with employees both their immediate and longer term future career direction preferences as well as their views on their current positions and jobs and various other aspects of the company, work environment, information dissemination etc and had collated the information she had gathered so far. I had, and have, never really thought about it and when asked last night had no answer. I suppose I had always assumed that Exetel would increase in terms of number of customers for as long as we provided effective and cost advantageous services. Apart from how it relates to macro financial planning for future periods Exetel has never had any view or even estmates on how many customers we might provide service to from time to time. We certainly have never had any specific aims to be "big"/"Top N"/"$N million in annual revenue" or any other metric associated with dollars or customer numbers. Annette's question was - did we actually need any more residential customers than we currently have and wouldn't it be far easier and far pleasanter for every one concerned to base any future growth on additional business customers while simply adding residential customers as current customers left us for whatever reason. Her more colourful way of putting it was to suggest that we closed the residential application pages with a message to the effect that: "applications are closed at the moment - should you wish to be advised when we could accept your application in the future please fill in your contact details below and we will notify you when a vacancy occurs". Pretty silly concept in any meaningful commercial sense but.....but......what is actually wrong with limiting the 'size' of any part of a commercial undertaking to some sort of discrete size? What actual advantage is there in growing a commercial business, or in this instance, part of a commercial business, simply because it's possible to do that? I actually couldn't think of one assuming that, as with Exetel, the objective wasn't to make any large amount of money in the first place. I suppose some of your suppliers won't 'love' you as much as you won't continue to regularly increase the amount of business you do with them beyond the current levels but then Exetel is only a tiny customer of virtually all of our suppliers so, in our case, such a situation is almost irrelevant. It's probably more problematic that 'no growth' in certain areas means that it will be more difficult to maintain the lowest possible component 'buying prices' but that would, presumably, be offset against lower operating costs as each aspect of current processes and procedures becomes ever more precisely (and therefore better) executed and each person employed becomes increasingly more knowledgeable and skilled in what they know and do. Career growth is still maintainable as the business customer base grows and more complex products and services are delivered. Personnel loss is addressed by hiring in either Australia or Sri Lanka as the circumstances dictate.....so nothing really changes other than the difficulty of maintaining residential customers at some pre-determined level. So an interesting few minutes over a pleasant dinner but of no real consequence and certainly no intention of considering it further. We moved on to talk about more interesting and personally relevant things as people who have known each other for a very long time tend to do as the level in the wine bottle continues it's inevitable plunge. So we drove home and thought no more about it. But then, in the cold light of an early Sydney Autumn morning (even earlier than I at first thought as I had forgotten to put the clocks back) I again thought about what we had discussed. There is little doubt that dealing with new 'business' customers is far, far easier than dealing with new residential customers of communicataions services. There is also no doubt, at least in my mind, that it is far easier for a small company to compete in business market places than it is in residential market places. In fact, when I think back about it I can see how really hard it has been for Exetel to offer communications services to residential users and how so much easier it has been to offer services to business users. So I thought about it a bit more and all the things that came in to my head were how there are so many problems providing services to residential users and virtually all of our resources (and certainly all of my time) is spent on dealing with issues and scenarios that generate very little satisfaction and absolutely no either personal or professional pleasure - simply because 0.25% of many, many tens of thousands of users are able to ruin (probably too harsh a description - maybe "introduce negativity completely disproportionate to their importance in the scheme of things") most days. On the other hand new business users require very little tiime and almost no effort and make life, for the most part, very pleasant and they are a pleasure to associate with. It would be interesting, and I thought, mutually rewarding to work with a 'fixed' number of customers to get every last detail of a wide range of services absolutley perfect rather than wasting so many people's time dealing with the same utterly mundane and pointless 'issues' such as "how do I set my email", "why is my ticket closed" and "I'm getting loads of drop outs"and endlessly on and on, from people who just won't lift a finger to read the copious documentation. It simply isn't a way that either customers or support personel should spend their days. So by the time I had finished the first cup of coffee of the day I actually couldn't think of a single real reason not to more thoroughly investigate Annette's light hearted suggestion but I coud think of a whole lot of reasons why it would be a really good thing to do. Then the caffeine kicked in and I realised I am getting far too old for this sh**. I need a new direction at least and more probably a new life - and I need to aim at achieving more realistic objectives like ....... Trackbacks
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There's no reason for you to limit the number of applications for residential users, just move its importance back.
ATM Exetel seems to be focusing most of its efforts on improving our plans etc, when those efforts could be used on recruiting Business users. If growth is steady, and you don't have to work hard at it just let it go.... Comment (1)
I can see both the good and bad of limiting new residential customers. Good in that you are limiting the support issues that will inevitably arise with new people from the 'hand-holding' ISP's that encourage illiteracy. But at the core of it I think you would be limiting your business customers as well. Not saying its actually going to happen, but what if the potential business chooses you because their chief technical dude uses you at home with no issues?
As the above poster suggests, I think just putting residential a little lower on the priority list would be a good move. We all come to Exetel for the great prices, service and extras that no other ISP offers. You have those in place. Let it ride for say 12 months, reviewing how things stand every 3? Comment (1)
I don't know that you would need to change the priority but perhaps a better situation would be if the residential services was all done via the agents
The agents get more business so they make more from the relationship but they also deal with the things like email, support tickets etc, I would guess the agents do a lot of this anyway but if the residential signup process involved choosing your nearest or preferred agent as part of the signup process rather than just signing up directly to Exetel it would increase their local business as well So Exetel becomes the point of contact for agents and business customers only, residential customers are managed by the agents, sounds good in theory anyway Comments (2)
I agree with this. I already happily support all those I sign up - gotta do something for the money I get from you each month.
We agents still need help now and then too, but I imagine we're usually easier to deal with than customers who don't know where the address bar is. On the other hand, if all your signups were via agents, it'd presumably make the services more expensive to cover our commissions. It would also potentially make it difficult for some people to sign up if they can't find a local agent that actually answers the phone; and underperforming agents would adversely affect Exetel's reputation. Comment (1)
wouldnt such a move appear bad for exetel, making it look as though it is in some form of trouble, or that something is awry?
i think suspending applications would scare off customers, be they new or old. Comment (1)
Anything is possible - though I don't see how suspending new applications could be rad as anything other than Exetel having enough customers.
Comments (6)
I could understand why you would consider that course of action very seriously.
Personally I've enjoyed your wonderful service for more than 5 years, so for what could only be selfish reasons, I wouldn't want to see it happen. Would still like to recommend Exetel to family & friends. What if new residential customers were required to be sponsored or recommended by existing customers, as a means of weeding out any future 'high maintenance' customers. Or try to specifically target a more technically savvy residential customer - probably easier said than done! Comment (1)
an invitation only Exetel connection, I like the sound of that
Comments (2)
Me too! /vote +1
Comment (1)
This, funnily enough, would probably generate MORE demand for Exetel services. One of the funny things about the market (or life) is that the minute something becomes exclusive, unique, unobtainable or rare, it is immediately more desirable to the majority.
As a customer you would feel satisfied that yes, indeed, I am good enough for Exetel. As you streamline your process and support to only deal with the more technically-aware users, your plans etc. would be even better, but be unobtainable. This is actually just a change on the usual monetary barrier to entry. Instead of requiring your customers to have truckloads of money, they are required to A. Have technical knowledge B. Have a friend/contact already on Exetel Not a bad solution. Comment (1)
Simplifying support and therefore decreasing the time and cost associated with providing the support, can be achieved by simplifying the products and services that you provide to your customers, whether they be residential or business.
This statement relates to Exetel in that the services are in a constant state of change, which for us customers is often a good thing because we are getting offered more services at lower prices, but for your sales/support staff, this means that they can never be fully up to date, and therefore have difficulty in providing efficient support. An example may be the recent emails that were sent out entitled "Revisions To ADSL2 Plans" where it appaears that all ADSL2 plans are having 1) 12 midnight to 12 noon allowance increased to 60 gb 2) 100 free VoIP calls to national/local wire line numbers added to all ADSL2 plans but on further reading of Exetel's forums the changes are only applicable to the plans that are 'currently' advertised for sale on the Exetel web and does not include all the plans that customers are 'currently' using, but are no longer able to be ordered as new plans. How much time has been spent answering customer questions about this email announcement? How much time is also spent answering questions about apparent ambiguities in information on the Exetel web page? If there were less changes to services it would be easier to keep all parts of the web page up to date, as well as keeping the support documentation up to date so that those people answering questions on the phone or online, can have a better chance of getting it right. I have worked in IT support roles for many years and it has always been a problem to balance the need for improvement to services (ie. number of changes) with the speed at which support staff (and customers) can keep up with documentation and knowledge of those services. This may be a more important problem to solve rather then the number of actual customers you have. If you get the services and change to services process simplified and more efficient, then an increase to the number of customers should have a smaller impact on your operations. Comment (1)
I think you have summed up a significant problem very well.
Comments (6)
This, in conjunction with the previous post (review plans once every 3 months) would also assist agents. We could print flyers and advertise, without the fear that the might be out of date 5 mins after a print run (as is the current case). Life for us, and probably also for you, would be SO much better if we knew that plan changes were due on 1st of each calendar season (Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec) other than "emergency" changes such as a sudden supplier price rise (which really shouldn't happen but I don't know how fixed your contracts are). If prices dropped, you could keep the proceeds and put that towards whatever you choose. Currently we can't advertise, and we can't get distribution flyers printed, which is hampering our efforts. And the constant change causes inconsistencies in the website info as discussed further above. Actually, in hindsight make it one month earlier for each change so that we can have time to advertise for the Christmas market after the 1 November plan change (alternatively, give all agents 2 weeks notice of any plan changes - agsin I know this hasn't been possible in the past but hopefully you can find a way).
Freezing any new customers would be a backward step IMHO. It would also push your agents into supplying your competitors too - thus removing you from the marketplace (and effectively removing you from "existance"). Comment (1)
I like the idea of giving more focus to businesses can always be a good thing.
Especially in this current financial climate, i'm sure IT expenditure is one many companies are looking to reduce. However, having previously worked at an IT support company (but not as a support staff) I noticed that many companies despite being offered much lower rates for support/internet services they were reluctant to move providers as they had developed a close one with their existing one. So price is just the one factor, the other is the "relationship" between provider and business. Comment (1)
John,
Do you consider Usenet as filesharing? - Im not sharing anything when I download off usenet - it comes from some random server directly to me. My wife says to me if downloading off the net becomes a grey area, - that she just wants me to increase our Foxtel package to receive the latest movies when they go to DVD. Are you asleep at the wheel John, dont you think the masses may follow the same path - good for Foxtel - bad for Exetel. Yes in a perfect world if all your customers only downloaded 20GB per month of their 60GB+ per month limit - yes it would be great for Exetel. But given the choice many may say if im not using my allocated limit why am I paying for it. Exetel's trump card with massive offpeak downloads has been played, its time to consider this very closely. If you think AFACT will win, its time to consider your options very closely. Comment (1)
I tend to think through things better and more clearly than anyone I've ever known....I still have the remains of a truly first class mind (not my assessment)
I saw the AFACT (or whoever) scenario coming over five years ago]. Asleep at the wheel? It would be nice to get a night's sleep one day - I don't think I've had one in a decade. Anyway - I do my best and it's been good enough so far to keep Exetel alive and growing above "the industry average" for what its worth. If you've read some of the over 600 'musings' I've written daily since mid 2007 you would have seen a tiny percentage of the things I try to think through and deal with every day of my life. Personally, I'm pretty sure one of my problems is that I try and think through things too hard and too often rather than the reverse. Comments (6)
What about having a tiered support model that would accommodate your less tech savvy customers?
Something like a dedicated support telephone number for users who aren't as technically minded as your average customer and need to ask the 'dumb' questions. You would charge $5-$10 extra per month (or whatever is appropriate) for the extra service provided. This may also have the extra benefit of encouraging more referrals (as a referrer, you can end up being your own little call centre). Comment (1)
We are considering doing something like that.
But, again, it's not very inspiring for the engineer who has to do it. Comments (6)
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