Do they really understand "Churn"?

Interesting article on the front page of the Chicago Tribune, "Call for wireless regulation gets louder." This has been a long time coming. In 2000 there were 100 million wireless customers and 31 million changed carriers that year. All the industry talk focused on decreasing this churn.

And the churn rates have improved. Better networks, better phones, better equipment all around has reduced the amount of churn. Along with the general impression that all carriers are just not that good. Why switch from the devil you know to the one you don't?

The problems arise from the same challenge AT&T faced when deregulated. Customer Service. It stunk. And for the wireless companies, it still does. The carriers are great until you have a problem. Then they are terrible. You become their enemy.

And being an election year we're bound to have the politicians step in to solve the problem. The complaints are that frequent and loud that our representatives think this will help them with re-election. Wow. That's really bad.

But there isn't a law that can solve this. Until the wireless companies realize that customer loyalty and profitability have a strong relationship, that successful, growing companies actually care about their customers, they will have lousy service.

It's a dramatic failure of marketing and it leaves the carriers in a terribly vulnerable market position.

The first carrier that realizes the critical importance of building and maintaining strong customer relationships will dominate the market.

Who’s Job Is Marketing?

Last week I spoke to a group of travel agents, talking about my book, The Failure of Marketing. Granted, it was perhaps a little unexpected by the audience. But they paid attention.

And most of them didn’t get it.

Marketing is everyone’s job. Particularly if you interact at any level with the customer.

You have to understand your brand.

You have to believe in what your company stands for, what it promises.

And you have to work ferociously to deliver on those promises – to everyone – everytime.

I used the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok as the main example. Every employee there understands it. You will never experience service like they deliver. Personal. Caring. Attentive without being overbearing.

That is why this hotel is continually rated the finest in the world.

The hotel understands that the only thing that can distinguish them over the long run is their people and their culture.

Travel agents have had a difficult go of it the past several decades. Airlines and other travel providers have been cutting their agent commissions. The agents have tried to charge fees but their revenue has been hurting. Their customers have headed to the internet.

Perhaps they need to take a lesson from the Oriental. They need to understand the critical nature of providing service.

I provided them a road map. Most didn’t understand.