Double Your Revenues Without Adding Customers?

That headline got your attention, didn't it?

Actually, it is a very viable marketing strategy s called smart marketing or, sometimes, vertical marketing. That means selling more products to existing customers to boost the bottom line of each individual bill. 

But how do you gain this ability to grow revenues without growing the customer base?  Let’s review a few basics.

Review Your Inventory
Taking stock of what you have to sell in telecom is a bit like trying to keep a Pla-Doh sculpture from shifting shapes on you.  That's because, in telecom, there is a combination of services to fit about any need you can dream up: end user call following, multiple ring services, voice mail, combinations of services like wake up service, reminders, return call, number capture, personal number directories … you name it.  CLASS features on telecom switches have more functionality than even most switch techs know about.

As a case in point, earlier in my career, I was in a marketing capacity where we were trying to generate more revenue from our most basic customers by selling features available on the switch.  The beauty of this plan is that you take the order and program the feature once and you collect on it every month. 

As an initial step, I went to the switch guys and asked for the manual that described what the switch could do.  They showed me a wall full of reference manuals.  Well, after many a night paging through diagrams, boring text and indexes, I synthesized that the fully loaded major manufacturer CLASS level voice switch has over 400 functionalities available that can be programmed onto a line.  This was more than six years ago, so heaven only knows what those “if we build it they will come” types have cooked up since. 

Most switch features are never used, so it's hard to imagine when you would want to use them.  However, for a clever marketing person, the possibilities become like a toy box with many pieces and no instructions.  Build as you see fit. 
I firmly believe that services that you can now buy, such as follow-the-user calling (which is just a series of call forwarding commands and multiple location ringing) were cooked up by somebody who actually took a switch feature list and tried to combine features like tinker toys to see what shapes they could come up with. 

What can your imagination create?  Automatic Call Prioritization?  Time of Day Remote Ringing?  Time Keeping for Professionals by Dial Pad Coding? 

Assess Customer Needs
For now, though, let's get away from Feature talk for now.  After all, marketing people are prone to create wonderful products and service offerings that sales forces seem to ignore.  Obviously, we cannot be successful if we act like the engineers who build switches, expecting customers to automatically use all the features.

Instead, the step is to mine our current customer data and make some plans.  Look at your target market(s) and think of what would really benefit that group of existing-target customers.

Do they consistently have too few station lines or experience no dial tone to make a call from stations at peak hours?  Try selling more trunks or offering a paid monitoring service by DID station.

Do they have few calls and only long calls as if they aren’t there frequently? Try voice mail, which– originally was pushed to the market by RBOCs in cost-per-minute markets where the most lucrative call was a 1-minute message. 

Lots of traffic between 9 to 5 and nothing afterwards?  Perhaps cell phones or after hours answering service or after hours call re-directioning. 

Lots of minutes on the Web?  Perhaps an IP designer package would appeal to them to fly their own flag on the Net.  Or perhaps an in-house network might appeal to those growing clients with non-networked workers.

Beyond the Basics
As I’ve said before in this column, partners are your friends when expanding your product line.  The obvious partnerships for non-resident services are with vendors for conference calling/meet me bridges, long distance, Internet service, cell phones, voice mail, and calling cards.

Why not expand that net to include telephone equipment vendors, network wiring contractors for network design and installation.  How about setting up and renting a picture teleconferencing room, cellular Internet service, call-in Internet service (electronic email readers etc.)?  Work with computer networking equipment vendors, computer vendors, and VoIP equipment vendors. 

The possibilities are endless.  In fact, I know of one carrier who created a “market basket” that included a credit card, client-branded calling cards for substitute business cards, overnight discounted services, office supply discounted services and credit card, discounted on-line gift service (with a reminder service and suggested specials for those birthdays, anniversaries, etc.), and other non-telco services.  It was GREAT.

Action Item
Now let your imagination go wild.  Try to think: “If nothing was impossible, what else could you sell to your current customers?  

Then make it happen.  In this technology-blessed world, with everyone partnering with everyone else, you CAN make it happen.

Tamra Burgwardt is President of TJB Telecom Consultants, a firm dedicated to creating new CLECs from certification and tariffing through account set-up, interconnection project management and beta testing of first end user lines.  She can be reached at 770-805-0800