More than 20,000 people with more than 20,000 different views. And yet, I kept hearing one recurring theme at CTIA Wireless ’97 last week. When it comes to competition, the difference between successful wireless carriers and those that lag is going to be in how the customer is treated.
While this may seem obvious on the surface, how carriers go about making the customer happy is a complex question. And the successful carrier will be the carrier with the successful solution to meeting his customers’ needs.
What makes the customer happy?
Is it price? Or innovative features? Or a quality network? Or knowledgeable customer service representatives that can help the customer when a problem does occur?
If the obvious answer is all of the above, which one gets top priority?
If again, the answer is all of the above, get realistic.
Where will the savvy wireless carriers put their emphasis?
Researcher Peter Hart, in his annual survey on wireless users for CTIA, found that cellular and PCS users both felt it was important to improve basic wireless service, rather than develop new services (73 percent of cellular users and 75 percent of PCS users chose the option “improve basic service.”)
If that means improving the basic analog voice network, why are so many carriers talking about adding messaging services, etc?
Is it because the competition also is offering those features? Is it wise to respond to the competition or the customer? Does the customer really know what makes him happy or only what he thinks will make him happy?
Hart said the cellular and PCS users his company surveyed said they were satisfied with overall service. But Hart is quick to point out that this statistic means more to cellular carriers, with a 14-year service record, than it means to PCS carriers, which have only begun to offer service.
Is it better for a carrier to try to please as many customers as possible by trying to be all things to all customers? Or does it make sense to try to please a smaller universe of customers with narrower needs?
Here is where the carriers differ. PCS player Aerial is staking its claim on the belief that the cellular industry has done some things wrong. Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile thinks it will be more difficult for PCS players to launch in each market going forward because the cellular companies have responded to those things, like contracts, that they were doing wrong.
Different carriers have different answers to the same questions.
Can all of the answers be right?
