Last June, RCR asked me what I thought would be the biggest problem facing the wireless industry in 1998. My answer comprised one word: Education. What I was referring to was training and educating industry employees, educating the public about cellular towers and, particularly, educating potential customers about wireless service offerings.
I didn’t realize at that time I would soon experience my own prophecy.
In August, I decided to purchase a nationwide voice-mail pager. Was I in for a shock. I couldn’t believe the number of paging companies that claimed to offer nationwide, standalone paging, not to mention the wireless-phone carriers that claimed to have “paging capability” built into their handsets.
My experience was confusing from the beginning. One Saturday morning, I decided to search for a pager. This was a big mistake.
All of the major players in my home town are closed on weekends. When is a business person who works 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday supposed to obtain a pager? Each of my telephone calls was greeted by a recording giving the office hours as 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday.
After exhausting my search locally, I called a large national paging carrier on its 800 number, hoping it would be open on Saturday. Low and behold, I reached a human being and explained the features for which I was looking in a pager. The courteous sales representative promised me an “exclusive” toll-free number on which my clients could leave me a personal voice message. She also offered me the convenience of ordering the pager over the phone and mailed the unit directly to my home.
Upon its arrival, I discovered an additional seven-digit number was needed to connect a caller to my voice mail after the 800 number had answered.
This was not what I had asked for; nor was it what I was promised. I immediately called my carrier, selected the customer-support option and was placed on hold with soothing music and recorded messages asking for my patience. Now remember that four days earlier when I ordered my pager, the sales representative came on immediately. It was a different story when trying to reach customer support. The company left me on hold for more than 15 minutes.
As an experiment, I hung up and immediately dialed sales. I was connected to a sales representative immediately.
Where is the customer service after the sale is made?
To make matters worse, returning the pager was even more difficult. I called three times to my carrier’s customer service throughout a 60-day period and was told a postage-paid return box had been mailed to me.
Each time I called, I was assured it had been sent. Tired of storing the company’s pager at my home and frustrated by the entire ordeal, I returned the pager at my expense. Of course, that same afternoon the prepaid box arrived at my door.
I continued my search for a pager-on a weekday-and was mesmerized by the claims made as well as the variation in prices and coverage offered.
The average person needs a radio-engineering degree to decipher all the information. I found the whole ordeal mind boggling, and I have 25 years of telecom-industry experience. What is the average consumer to do?
I also explored wireless-phone pagers, but not only were they expensive, they did not offer me the options I needed.
One specialized mobile radio carrier had the right idea, but its service was not cost-effective, and it didn’t service many major cities.
After several days of sorting through the choices, I settled on a second national paging carrier. This company offered the largest footprint and the type of service I needed at a price I was willing to pay.
After obtaining the pager on a Friday, I returned to my office and discovered my password had been programmed incorrectly. I could not access my voice mail or change my service options.
I returned immediately to the carrier’s retail store only to discover it had closed at 6 p.m. for the weekend.
Two days passed before I was able to program in the correct password, and I was finally in service.
The point of this story is to illustrate what many of my associates and family members are telling me is an all-too-typical story in the wireless industry. As we pass the 50-million mark for wireless phones, and God knows how many pagers are out there, we need to stop and think for a moment.
If we are to realize the penetration rates for wireless services in this country that are being realized in Western Europe and elsewhere, we need to simplify our services and rates.
And above all, we need to clearly differentiate our services as well as give exemplary customer service to all our wireless customers when they need it.
Until we do, our industry will continue to have phenomenal churn rates that pass existing customers from provider to provider rather than winning the desired number of new customers who have never used wireless service.
For some companies, it will determine whether they survive in this highly competitive environment that has already seen several bankruptcies.
Is anyone listening?
Gregory E. Sweet is president of Acquire Telecom Services, a Phoenix-based company that provides project management, training and recruiting to the wireless communications industry.
