Tuesday, September 14. 2010Who Would Have Thought The "One Bill" Concept.......John Linton .....would still be alive and well ten years in to the 21st Century? Well, contrary to the date published on the web site and a verbal confirmation from the ABS itself mid yesterday morning, the latest ABS figures on broadband take up will now not be available until next Monday. While a week doesn't matter much it was disappointing because we would have liked an update on the progress of wireless broadband before making any final decisions on just how we might change our current wireless broadband offerings - but another delay in that long drawn out process is not going to jeopardise anything in particular other than losing slightly more 'momentum' than we already have. I will be interested to see the latest ABS figures for other reasons such as whether there has been any growth in the reported number of ADSL services - I stress the 'reported' aspect of that sentence because there must always be doubts about the accuracy of 'self reporting' of the base data which I doubt is done as accurately by at least some of the companies as it is by Exetel. However I have always assumed it was a very good indications of trends if not a very accurate indication of overall market size which I think it has always 'over reported' - perhaps that's too cynical a view. The 'trend' that becomes more evident each day in terms of the ADSL market is that Telstra now accounts for almost 100% of the churn aways we experience. - there are more days when all the churn aways are to Telstra which is something I wouldn't have believed possible only a few months ago. Perhaps equally surprisingly is that there are almost no churn aways to TPG which used to comprise around 50% of churn aways every day only 8 or so weeks ago but now, as if a tap was turned off, are very rare with only one or two every day or so. I have no idea as to what other ISPs are experiencing but I doubt that Exetel has any particularly unique characteristics that would make our experiences so different. When we call the 'departing' customers they don't seem to have any distinct reasons for moving from Exetel to Telstra. Hard though it is to believe the only discernible reason is that they "want all services on one bill". No-one has said they did it to reduce their spending and only one or two said it was because they were unhappy with the quality of the service provided. We will have to do a far more rigorous check on 'departure' reasons because I just don't understand what I have seen so far. Perhaps the 'one bill' nonsense has more impact than I have ever given it credit for. I have always resisted the temptation to add to Exetel's revenue by offering telephone line rental as there was no value we could add to the provision of such a service and we certainly couldn't save the end user any money. I understand that many other providers don't share my view and, if the analysis of Telstra's acquisitions of Exetel customers proves out the QAD analysis we have done so far, maybe they have a more correct view of the residential market places than I ever have - not very hard to believe. It is far too late in the 'day' to think about offering telephone line rental now - it would, apart from anything else, be far to cynical for a company that only uses VoIP in its own operations and believes so firmly in the future of wireless to recommend a dead/dying technology to any type of customer....but the 'analysis' done so far has really surprised me. I wonder what other 'discredited' concepts will come back or simply re-surface to make decisions even harder than they are at the moment? Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Trackbacks
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"One bill" is definitely alive and prospering!
It is/was the main reason/stumbling block given by many of the people I have "encouraged" to look at Exetel. And getting a "discount" for combined services is also a bit of a "mantra". Regards, Harry. Regards, Comment (1)
Well I hope this time round you can be creative with the wireless plans.
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Re: the wireless plans, the best thing about Exetel's plans are the low excess compared to most other providers, which allows people to pick the plan they need rather than the one above what they need just in case they go e few mb over their limit. I think the value of this is often underestimated in the market.
As you are considering changes to wireless and you are also finding that people like bundling, you may want to think about whether it is possible and attractive to Exetel to offer "quota sharing" across 2 or more sims. This could be useful for households that have more than 1 of wireless modems, smartphones, ipads etc. Ideally the quota could be shared across plans that do and don't have voice capabilities. I guess your low excess makes this less of a big deal than it would be for your customers than it would be for cutomers of other companies but there are still good savings for cutomers in having for example 1 x 2GB plan as opposed to 2 x 1GB plans. Seems like a more innovative way of bundling than just applying an $x discount to an inflated optus mobile plan. Comment (1)
I wouldn't mind seeing an option to eliminate the excess charges by either shaping (like Virgin) or stopping access altogether (like Internode).
I hope these new wireless plans will be competitive. I've been thinking about switching from Exetel HSPA for Vodafone HSPA for a few weeks now. Comment (1)
I dont really understand why people want one bill - especially if you get the invoice emailed to you. Email arrives, check over, click pay. Done.
Most of our stuff is setup to be automatically deducted anyway, so its even simpler. Just a cursory glance over the bill to make sure nothing stands out like the proverbial dogs balls. It takes literally seconds in a month. I like the idea 'Spectator' suggested with regards to quota sharing. Its already in place for the business fleet plans (which we use) so unless that side of the accounting is all handled by Vodafone I'd assume it would translate to residential plans fairly easily? Comment (1)
Well, not sure how related it is, but...
I just checked my MS Access DB, and I have 90+ Exetel customers who get me to pay their bill, and then they pay me. (Well, almost always - the commission used to cover the rare baddies.) That's 90 out of about 250 services! Many of those people were not willing to sign up with Direct Debit or Credit Card options. What does that tell you about the market I haven't noticed a churn away although I admit I don't pay much attention to it. In those rare instances where I've offered someone a trial unit and they've then signed up with BigPond, it was usually because "it was the easy way out." If I was to go to BigPond, the reasons that would attract me would be: Reduced price due to bundling (Percieved) improvement in speed by not using a reseller. (Although with what they do / did to YouTube I'm not so sure.) The fancy kit they're peddling for IPTV At the moment, they have 2G and 50G plans priced affordably, but it falls into the 'not enough' or 'too much' category for many people so I've still managed a couple of signups. I suspect the churns to Telstra are for those reasons above, plus a sense of 'safety' in that we're not going to see Telstra go broke for a while yet, but people might wonder that about Exetel - particularly perhaps the less bright ones who get emails about price rises and plan changes. What I have seen recently is people revisiting their Exetel ADSL bills and commenting that they're too expensive. (Those on older plans have seen them sneak up a bit with the $3 fee from a while back, and the other surcharges that existed back then.) I've saved many of those, and alerted all customers, by advising them to revisit what plan they're on since probably about 30% of them could now get a similar or faster service for $10 to $15 cheaper. BigPond does the same thing, so I simultaneously advised my customers to check their BigPond accounts as well - many were still on the $30 for 256K with 400MB the $150 per Gig excess. Now they get 1500 speed and 2000MB and no risk of excess, so a no-brainer. So, perhaps one thing to check is what plans the departers were on. If they're on older plans, it might mean you need to consider a friendly reminder email to all that 'hey we have some cheaper plans these days, but we can't move you automatically because some people want to keep the old plans for their own usage patterns' or some such. My only other stat I'd check is the ratio of agent to non-agent churn-aways. I'm too small to benefit, but I could conceive of some double-agents swapping customers over to BigPond for one-offs. Anyway, keep up the good fight I better get back to work. Cheers, Mike. Comment (1)
I'm pretty surprised by today's blog because it seems naive. "One Bill" clearly hits a sweet spot for some customers and I fully understand why customers like it. It is convenient and appears to make things simple. Don't undervalue the convenience of paying only one bill and having only one company to deal with problems.
Keeping across different providers for billing and service is a hassle. Fees change, credit card expiry dates come and go and the more companies you deal with, the more work for the customer. It might be cheaper on a monthly basis but that comes at a cost. One provider definitely makes things easier. The question is what is the cost a customer is willing to bear for the convenience of one bill and one provider? I suspect most people will pay a rather large price for the convenience of only one bill. Comments (2)
One bill from Telstra? No thanks. I returned two Foxtel units because I couldn't see the value in keeping the service -- it took months to get the credit that was due for them being returned ... in the mean time they tried telling me over and over that I owed them $600 for non-return of equipment. Month after month I had to call them and they would agree that it would be sorted next month.... eventually they were right, but it took a long time and a lot of effort.
Now.... what if they had direct debit on my account? Or they believed the "unpaid" monies were enough to cancel all services on a single bill? Telstra products have improved significantly and there are show stoppers for me, but those same show stoppers are not a problems for many more others. There are great advantages with Exetel/Telstra ADSL2 -- for instance "complex services" is not a problem as it is will other ADSL2 options. Nothing has to change with the original land line, home line budget is available as a least cost option. Very happy to have my old People Telecom service (was Swiftel) moved across to Exetel/Telstra ADSL2 and what's more, I still keep my old home line budget on the same line with fax duet! Plus all the other advantages of having an Exetel service over alternatives, particularly static IP and uploads not counted in quota. Comment (1)
if I were take a wild guess the term "one bill" by the departing customers doesn't actually mean they want one bill for convenience sake, to me it would mean they took a bundle offer, home phone, internet, Foxtel whatever, sure it comes as one bill but it's the deal that they are making attractive, not the single bill, that's just how it's done
if Exetel, as perhaps the most cost effective provider is losing customers to Telstra and these offers one could only imagine how many the more expensive ISP's must be losing Comment (1)
I'm not convinced it is cost saving of a bundling deal that convinces people to switch to Telstra. I've seen people who like the one bill and others who like having one provider. In most cases a Telstra bundle is still more expensive than other options.
However bundling may force Exetel out of the ADSL market and eventually take a couple of ISPs out too. TPG have their "TPG ADSL2+ with Home Phone Plans" - home phone + ADSL2 starting at $40 (3Gb+7Gb) per month (line rental included but no calls) to $70 (500Gb). Yes there are downsides to this arrangement (eg no fax, modems, back to base alarms) but as far as I can work out this is cheap and Exetel can't match it - not even its Optus ADSL2 with phone. This part of the market is getting very nasty. Comments (2)
I've one bill! With Exetel, Home phone/ADSL2+/Voip/2x Mobiles all for
Comments (3)
weird.. my post cut out...
cont... All for < $80/month. couldn't be happening since I became Telstra free! Comments (3)
err happening=happier.
Sorry... very tired. 2yo teething, not much sleep! Comments (3)
Wow, one bill is that much in demand. People must be leaving Telstra in droves to go to DODO. There you can get ADSL/Mobile/HSPA/Phone and now Electricity all on one bill.
https://secure.dodo.com.au/electricity/PlanSelection.aspx? Regards Comment (1)
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