Expert sees dangers in promo pricing trend

One more intelligent possibility is to offer existing profitable customers special promotions or price breaks on new services, Weber said. He advocates building a portfolio of services, at different price points, to fit different user needs. Service providers need to look at their pricing portfolio and see if there are gaps or segments where smaller incremental steps can be added to make it easier to move a customer up the value chain.

“It is more difficult in broadband than in other areas,” Weber said. “But you can build specific offers on usage behaviors – call patterns or usage patterns – and rearrange your pricing so it suits them. That includes streamlining your whole operations down to the call center operations and the commission rates they are paid.”

Since it is common practice across the telecom segment to base commission rates on new sales, Weber said, it would be important to match the compensation to the new goal of retaining and upselling customers.

“They don’t do enough with regards to upselling, and these upselling activities need to be based on a defined process,” Weber said. That process needs to take into account customer intelligence, such as usage patterns, so that the customer service representative can make the most compatible offer, Weber said.