Meat or connection?

In an informal conversation with a manager of a telephone operator about the macroeconomic situation and the decisions that are taking the companies (not grant terminal / abidance increase ….) and governmental (portability express) made a comment that caught my attention: “If this continues there will come a time when people must choose between a steak or be connected”.

His comment left me confused …. His intention was to warn that both items are now two staples facing a declining purchasing power.

Data:

– The mobile park in January reached the 58,880,647 lines, 3.2% higher than a year ago, a growth largely reinforced by the datacards, which increased by 82,901 lines and broke four consecutive months of losses .- We are the second country in the world with the highest penetration of smartphones, with 44%, just behind Germany. The mobile data traffic grew by 28%.

– In consequence of the measures which we spoke earlier in this post, the customer is becoming less true. In January 2012, beating the record of monthly portability (porting) with 539,599 mobile phone lines covers (Spain is a country with more changes of company, whose owners are looking for cheaper bills, change terminals, build promotions. ..).

“Clearly,” I said, “that consumers have this need but there are a large percentage of them to change because of dissatisfaction with the quality, customer service or rates simpler.” To which the manager replied: “We have to be closer to them, know what you need and when, you feel a bond with the brand in time to get fidelizarlo”.Here comes the magic word that all markets wanted and still want, to answer: How loyalty to my customers? Cards, points …

Some of the tools that have been using for some time and that, according to data fidelity, apparently have not been sufficient and that have been used more as a “hold” or “stay”, which as really loyalty. But what about communication, personalized service, multi-channel, service offering and adapt to needs? What about the customer life cycle, are always the same needs? Does the customer does not evolve?Do not forget that the largest investment in a client is in recruitment and in the “hold”, but between these two extremes, what is investment?

This requires, among other things, generate customer value as the main focus of a coordinated strategy in many areas, Marketing / Sales / Operations … ideas are there, but what is needed is channeled in one direction …. and therein lies an important part of the difficulty, to be discussed in a future post.