Selling the Right Plan

Successful wireless carriers aren't taking a "love 'em and leave 'em" attitude after signing up new subscribers. Instead, they are adopting a variety of pro-active approaches to develop and maintain a long-term relationship with subscribers by ensuring they are on the most cost-effective billing plans.

"I think it's hugely important for people to be on the right plan because once they get past the minutes that are (normally) included, the charge gets a little bit higher, and they shouldn't have to be paying for those minutes, " explained Jean Pelegrin, Airadigm Communications marketing communications manager.

"We want to encourage them to use the phone more and more," she said. "You don't want to punish them for talking over 500 minutes. You want to encourage that type of usage."

By offering a wide range of plans, from a low monthly fee with no included minutes to a more expensive option that features plenty of talk time, companies such as Airadigm have the flexibility to suggest more cost-effective options to their subscribers should their needs change.

JUST REWARDS Cellular One, which serves some 15,000 to 20,000 people in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, offers "perks," such as an extra battery, some free airtime or a cigarette lighter cord, to subscribers who switch plans after running up charges over their initial subscription plans.

Cellular One uses every opportunity to make certain its subscribers are on the proper plan. For instance, whenever a subscriber calls or stops in, an employee will do a quick computer check of the subscriber's account for the past six to 12 months.

"We've trained our customer service reps, retail coordinators and our salespeople to look in the computer ... to see what rate plan the customer is on and then to match them to the best plan," said Randy Carr, senior account manager. "That way we've got the customer knowing that we're looking out for their interests. That's our pro-active approach."

Carr added that customers appreciate the extra effort and the cost-savings that can go along with the switch in plans.

WirelessNorth not only spends time prequalifying customers to make certain they sign up for the best plan, but also it conducts regular reviews of customer usage. The company currently has more than 2,000 subscribers in North Dakota and plans an aggressive build-out schedule throughout the rural Midwest.

"We do conduct ongoing surveys of customers to make sure they're having a positive experience," said Patrice Smith, PCS communications manager. "We address the plan they're on to see if it's a good fit or whether we need to look at changing the plan or revising it for them."

Although the system currently is not enabled, WirelessNorth can have its ITDS billing system run "what if" scenarios to alert its customer service personnel to customers who may need to have their rate plans adjusted.

A customer service representative can enter different rate plans for a subscriber to see how the invoice would look compared with the current plan, Smith explained.

One WirelessNorth subscriber who had been exceeding his home air plan free minutes by more than 200 minutes a month was subsequently switched to another company plan. The customer ended up saving between $20 and $40 per month.

VALUE ANALYSIS That kind of value-added service also is key to the success at Aerial Communications, which serves some 200,000 subscribers in Columbus, OH; Houston; Kansas City, MO; Minneapolis; Pittsburgh; and the Tampa-St. Pete-Orlando-Daytona areas in Florida. When subscribers receive their bills from the company, every quarter or so they will see a "value-check" analysis of their usage, including suggestions about plans that might better suit them.

"It strikes a deep chord in people because they really look at it as an extra step on the company's part to be fair with them," said Dan Kubera, Aerial spokesperson.

Kubera said that savvy consumers today are insisting on those types of value-added services from their wireless carriers.

"There are people out there looking for service that is affordable, useful and valuable and aren't going to just take anything that somebody gives them anymore," he said.

Airadigm's Pelegrin said carriers risk losing those subscribers when they don't inform them about rate plans that may be better-suited to their usage.

"We want to make sure that our customers are on the right plan," she said, "because if they're not, it leaves them really vulnerable to be undercut by the competition."

EDUCATION Pelegrin said Airadigm relies heavily on its sales force to place customers on the right plan. The company plans eventually to have its billing system provide an analysis of customer usage, she said.

"For us right now, a big piece of it is education up-front, to let the customer know that here's the process we go through to help you select the right rate plan," she said. "If you find your usage is changing down the road -- either increasing or decreasing -- call us back, and we'll help you get on the right rate plan."

United States Cellular also stresses the importance of its point-of-sale efforts with customers. Its customer-care agents also follow up by querying the billing database on a regular basis to check that subscribers are on the proper plan.

"We don't look at these things as transactional sales but as building relationships," said David Friedman, United States Cellular vice president of marketing.

"If the customers are happy, they will come," added Cellular One's Carr. "The bottom line is that if the customer is comfortable with you and believes in your company, that's where they're going to purchase the product. "