Give 'em what they want

How educated does the customer have to be? Are we so entrenched in our technology that we figure everyone else should be, too?

The way DSL has been marketed is all wrong. Service providers and equipment suppliers have forgotten—or simply ignored—how mass-market customers think.

Case in point: On a Chicago billboard, huge red letters spell “DSL.” Below that, if you strain your eyes, you can read something about high-speed Internet access. But you wouldn't notice it unless you were looking. How educated does the customer have to be? Are we so entrenched in our technology that we figure everyone else should be, too?

It reminds me of the pharmaceutical ads on TV. Half the time I don't know what the drugs do, and more frequently I couldn't pronounce them even if I wanted my doctor to prescribe them to me. I see the name, but what is the benefit of the drug?

A similar problem is true in marketing DSL. DSL is an access technology. It's not a service. The service—the key one anyway—is always-on, high-speed Internet access. One means of providing that is DSL. Another is cable. I bet most customers don't care how they get fast access—they just want it. Now. And they'll pay for it.

Take other technologies: How many customers call the phone company to ask for TDM service? None. They just ask for a phone line, or two or three. How many call and ask for voice over IP? Maybe some, but those who do are probably technically inclined and have tried VoIP as a whiz-bang way to communicate with their early adopter friends. I doubt most consumers realize when they get a free phone card in the mail that two-stage dialing usually indicates VoIP. Why should they?

Don't get me wrong. Service providers shouldn't withhold information from customers. They should be forthright about the technologies they use. But carriers shouldn't focus on technology over service.

One major carrier is allegedly taking that tack with VoIP. Rumors abound that this provider surreptitiously uses VoIP to deliver long-distance telephone calls and no one is the wiser. Apparently no customers have complained, so it must be working well.

The issue in this case is that the carrier won't confirm that is using VoIP. To be fair, the only people who appear interested in discovering the truth are within the industry. I suspect the company is quiet for bottom-line reasons: It doesn't want to lose the income from those per-minute charges or pay other carriers to terminate international calls.

On the DSL side, carriers can adopt this approach, but they should be upfront about it. Vendors and service providers must focus on the applications for DSL—what the customer can get from using high-speed access. Rather than offer “voice over DSL”—which assumes the small business customer knows or cares what that is—the provider should develop a small business communications package that includes eight voice lines and one data line. Because that package is based on VoDSL, it will cost less than wiring the business with nine physical links, which makes it more attractive to cash-strapped small to medium-sized enterprises. The technology doesn't matter.

This approach will force the hand of most service providers, though. If a DSL provider promotes high-speed access, it should be sure its system is robust enough to support all the potential users when they come calling. If not, the customers will knock on someone else's door. I've seen no industry number that indicate users—business or otherwise—are loyal to a specific technology.

By promoting “DSL” rather than the applications it enables, we're expecting the customer to learn our business. They have enough to worry about. Let's make it easy on them.

Contact Susan Biagi at sbiagi@intertec.com