Sell a good product well
I've commented many times that cellular radio is a great technology that has been sold poorly since the start: confusing rate plans, one year, now two year contracts, bogus coverage maps, salespeople on quotas that don't know what they are talking about, and on and on. J.D. Power and Associates, though, has just released their 2004 Wireless Retail Sales Satisfaction StudySM (internal link, interesting reading in .pdf). T-Mobile ranked highest in overall retail sales customer satisfaction. J.D. Power's Kirk Parsons states the obvious, "Retail outlets that set the proper expectations and do not oversell the product or service generate significantly higher ratings and, more importantly, increase the likelihood of repeat purchases." Of course. How simple.
Cellular has been successful in spite of its retail methods, not because of it. People have put up with poor service because they need the product and because the industry has been so profitable that they've been able to ignore customer complaints. Only in the last two to three years, with increased competition, are they starting to worry about how they treat people. Well, they're starting to. Speaking of which, the leftist but effective American Association for Retired People, or AARP, is targeting the cellular industry, now that wireless is trying harder to sell to older Americans.
The New York Times reports today that, ". . .AARP is not happy with what it has heard from its members: complaints about incomprehensible service contracts, confusing bills and dead zones that are not clearly marked on coverage maps. They are the same concerns that have been expressed for years by other consumer advocates, who now have a new champion in the 35-million-member AARP." The Times quotes Steve Largent of the CTIA, "For whatever reason, the AARP has been coming after us. It is very troubling." Indeed. And you have no one to blame but yourselves.
I read many wireless industry publications; customer service and complaints have not been a concern. They figure you'll go to another carrier if you have a problem. Some customers walk. They call this turnover "churn." Lovely word. Anyway, it was cheaper for them to accept a certain percentage of churn than it was to put money into better customer service or to fix dead spots out in the field. When churn started getting too high carriers introduced two year contracts to lock customers into place. Only now, again because of increased competition, are they starting to throw money into sales help and technology. It will take many years but sales and coverage among national carriers will eventually improve. Not because the carriers are happy to, but because they are forced to. A wonderful product sold poorly. A shame.