Friday, April 22. 2011Increasing Wireless Broadband Sales.......John Linton ....is something we have failed to achieve from the very start of offering this service. We have never managed to sell more than 1,000 new wireless services in any month and over the past few months new net adds have dropped to the lowest levels ever. Although we offer some of the lowest price per GB plans available from any carrier or carrier re-seller and, any time a side by test is run, offer faster and more reliable speeds than any other carrier or carrier re-seller we just can't seem to make any progress. We have allocated three days next week to see what can be done to make this really exceptional service more attractive to more new customers, and our current customers, and need to come up with one or more really 'new' and obviously beneficial 'features' of a wireless service. Strangely, the 'new' resold Optus Layer 3 services, which have lower prices (dollars per GByte) don't sell as well as our 'old' premium plans which have substantially higher prices per GByte. That is very much a mystery to us although the partial explanation is that those plans are bought by commercial organisations who, presumably, can tell the difference between the speeds Exetel deliver over our Layer 2 service and also like the other service features of static IPs and a comprehensive user back end control suite. Looking at those features, and the customers who buy them, yesterday afternoon and again earlier this morning in preparation for the meetings next week I was wondering how similar approaches could be used for residential customers. Does a fixed IP have any appeal to a residential customer? It is obvious why a fixed IP appeals to a commercial customer but what relevance does it have to a residential user? Does the 'average' residential buyer even understand what advantages a fixed IP provides?...almost certainly not. Is it possible to point out what advantages a fixed IP may have to a residential user? Perhpas a discussion will reveal some advantages of which I am unaware? Perhaps Exetel's ability to 'bundle' wireless services together with 'joint' usage of data and voice mbs and voice minutes could be used in a 'family' environment where the usage provisions on separate plans could be aggregated? Most business users, that we have, seem to prefer the concept of buying a 'bucket' of data GBs and voice minutes and make them available to all their users thus avoiding the waste that is the basis for all mobile broadband and telephone plan pricing where the carriers base their pricing knowing that their average user will use less than 50% of the 'headline' minute and data allowances? Business users are increasingly taking this approach and more recently schools who supply laptops or iPads to their students are increasingly doing the same. It seems logical that this might appeal to 'families' where 'Dad' ponies up the money for mum and the kid's mobiles. Along the same lines, perhaps the back end control panel that is an essential element for a business user would appeal to parents? Using these facilities the family 'boss' can see exactly what usage his family members are up to day by day and can also see what that usage is in terms of web sites visited. It would allow the minute by minute checking to ensure the allowances aren't going too fast and would avoid 'bill shock' by enabling the suspension of any family members service if they were using too much. Perhaps none of those ideas will appeal to anyone but Exetel has to 'think outside the nine dots' and use our unique abilities, Layer 2, highly skilled programmers, ability to innovate very rapidly) to make our services more attractive to more prospective customers than we been able to do to date. If anyone has any ideas they would be very much appreciated. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 Trackbacks
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John, I follow your blogs with interest and although in your terms I am one of those who cannot tie their shoe laces I have managed to survive over 4 years with Exetel without complaint. As an experiment about 2 weeks ago I was about to subscribe to your premium wireless plan but a last minue check showed that reception from Optus would be sub-optimal with speeds,at maximum, well below what I get on my fixed line. It appears only Telstra supplies effective coverage for me although I live in a central district of Canberra Garran, Phillip. Oral contact with Optus suggests this is not likely to change soon. So I have canned the idea but would quickly revive it If and when you had Telstra as a carrier option. In keeping with my inability to tie my shoelaces status I also tend to value stability over frequent change so I am not likely to plan or supplier jump for the sake of change.These comments are made to help your profiling of the tehnically great unwashed but we do spend money.
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Kevin,
Thank you for that insight. Coverage is the key determinant in selecting a wireless service (with tower capacity/contention a close second). As that is self evident I would think a carrier like Optus would continue to improve its coverage over time. What that 'time' might be is unknown to companies like Exetel. Comments (4)
The best wireless plan you ever had was the $0 a month 2 cents a GB plan that you cancelled as uneconomic a while ago.
That plan was a real way to stand out in the market as it would greatly appeal to normally homebound iPad and tablet owners. Plus as an ADSL backup solution without a recurring cost. Any way to bring something like that back bundled with an ADSL plan? Comments (2)
The current cost to Exetel for a monthly access is $3.85 per month.
We could not offer such a plan at lower than a monthly cost of $4.00 plus 1.5 cents per megabyte. Comments (4)
Recently I have noticed the organisation that registers 'ethical' businesses, especially in the area of coffee and chocolate that is ethically grown, harvested and processed (not using child slave labour for example). Maybe you could market Exetel this way. A business that does not lie about the services and provisioning levels, employs, trains and pays offshore labour at ethically acceptable rates. Has support for the off shore country in the way of University grants and the Elephant conservation plan. Has other conservation plans here in Australia.
Maybe registering with one of these ethical organisations my help Exetel. Lawrie. Comment (1)
Hmm... that family deal sounds interesting.
I think you would sell a lot more services if you advertised a tiny bit, or put them in stores (post office, supermarkets) like all the big boys. Comment (1)
One advantage of a static IP is that I am able to VNC into my parent's or my sister's PCs without having to drive to their places to fix any problems they might be having. It is quick even over the wireless broadband. Maybe the remote assistance angle could be pushed? Some technical ability is required though.
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I think the family bundle sounds great.
I currently use one of your mobile data plans in my mobile and make calls using another parties VOIP callback service as I use more data than calls. My wife one the other hand makes more calls but uses barely any data. If I could just use some of her minutes when I make a call that would be much easier than using the callback service. If this was available and included using data in other wireless devices I would also like to get a third sim to use in a tablet/laptop as I currently just swap the sim from my phone when I want "mobile device" data. Comments (2)
Just another suggestion. I think removing (or reducing to postage cost) the $20 or $15 sign up/activation cost would lead to an increase in wireless signups as you can walk into many stores and pick up a $2 sim (sometimes they even give them away) to use with other suppliers.
I know this sounds petty and in the scheme of things is a minimal cost, but the idea of paying to switch to a new provider has stopped me changing mobile services in the past. Comments (2)
It doesn't sound a lot but at 1,000 new user a month it is $20,000.
As you say, the current user land expectation is every thing should be free. Unfortunately those "little costs" are not "little" to the company that has to pay 'real' money for the sims and the postage. Comments (4)
I think $20 upfront for a SIM or free on a 12 or 24 month contract option is reasonable. Most people like to have a choice and the plan / company with the hughest upfront cost will often lose the customer. I tried to get a small business ti go with your PABX solution but you lost out due to the $500 higher startup cost although your solution would break-even in under 12 months and save money from that point on.
Could you offer filtering on your wireless plans? Having the option to block p2p, FTP, Microsoft updates would seriously tempt me to pick up a sim to go in as a backup link in my router. Currently it would be too dangerous to have it in there, it could run up a huge bill. Also how about a family friendly DNS option? Could you use openDNS and just provide an option to easily enable per account on the members page? The option to be able to specify data, voice minutes and/or cost thresholds on the members page and send SMS warnings to the "boss" on a family plan would be great. Ideally you'd have a single page to show all the accounts, thresholds alerts etc. Keep up the good work. Comment (1)
Thank you for the suggestions.
I'll see what can be done. Comments (4)
1000 new users a month is actually quite impressive, I know of some multi franchise dealerships that could only dream of selling those kinds of numbers, no surprises what a difference clear information and knowledgeable staff makes
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I think the family plan for mobile minutes is a good idea. My family is split over 3 Exetel ADSL services though.
Would it be practical for Exetel to aggregate mobile services, then split the eventual bill to each account? Though trying to split the cost could be troublesome to creating the rules to follow. Do I as the non-dad pay only for the minutes I use, does the dad then pay for the unused minutes on the account (if it was a cap plan spread between us). If two of the ADSL children have mobile plans, and then the parents have the ADSL account, and want to get mobile plans. Who knows! But I've been very happy to spend $20 on my mobile each month. Comment (1)
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