Charge & Recharge

In extreme weather, a backup battery can save a life.

Ice. Snow. Slush. Bitter cold. Subzero temperatures. Inhumane wind-chill factors. This winter, most states in the union experienced similar weather patterns, imprinting us all with new expectations of winter wonderlands. While cooped up this past holiday season suffering with a case of cabin fever, I dreamed up this idea to warm up your accessory sales program.

What are consumers concerned about as temperatures drop? Will that car battery last through this winter? Why not play off that battery concern with a battery offer of your own? Send a message to subscribers asking them if they want a new battery as backup or would like to replace their current battery from the warmth of their homes.

How many of your phones at this instant are sitting in those cold cars in subzero temperatures? How many of your phones' batteries have already cooked in sweltering heat last summer? Swinging temperatures aside, how many of your phones have sustained substantial abuse in the last 12 months?

All you have to do is send your customers post cards through the mail. Ask them if they want to make sure they have a spare battery on hand if theirs go flat. Carriers only have so many phones in their product lines. Ask the customer to check which model phone he owns. For one flat fee of say, $25, you could send the customer a battery replacement. The fee could incorporate the cost shipping as well.

If only 10% to 20% of your subscriber base responds to this offer, that still could be a terrific source of revenue for the slow after-Christmas months. Reaching out in this simple way to 10% of your subscribers could ameliorate some of the churn and make them feel as though you truly care about them.

Depending on how sophisticated you want to get, you could replace the post card with an e-mail or a programmed message to your subscribers through your voice-mail program. Using a Web-based program, you could even send e-mail updates of the status of their battery like Amazon.com or U.S. Postal Service does.

Or on the voice-mail program, customers could call in to an automated response mechanism. If you have an Audiovox phone, please press 1. If you have a Nokia phone, please press 2 ... If you would like to buy a battery for your Audiovox CDM-4000, please press 4.

There are all sorts of added benefits. You can reach out to customers who may have old, analog or ungainly phones. You know they are out there. You could encourage them to trade them in. You could provide a hotline number for emergency accessories. You could gather more information about your customers.

The fact is, carriers do plenty to take care of acquiring customers and the newly signed subscribers. However, the older customers and their equipment just drift farther away, getting older and less productive, usually until the customer is forced to initiate action.

Don't pretend they aren't out there. I have a high-usage phone friend (+1,500 minutes a month) who I believe actually has worn out her Nokia phone. For instance, the battery doesn't hold a charge. The LED readout doesn't always read out. (If she presses really hard on the plate over the readout, she finds it will occasionally appear.) Of course, I have encouraged her to go to her carrier and get a new phone. Her reaction when I told her how much her phone's performance has degraded over the years: "You mean, everyone doesn't have these problems?"

No carrier should believe this is an acceptable thought for any of their customers.