Small Businesses Are Customers, Too

Small- and medium-size businesses can affect your bottom line. They may not have as many phones as large-business customers, but smaller businesses use wireless services more often than large companies.

According to Melissa May, AirTouch southern California public relations manager, small-business customers replace their landline phones with wireless more readily than larger companies.

"The responsiveness that small businesses have to have to their customers often requires that they be mobile and extremely accessible throughout the day, so their wireless phones take on the dimensions of the primary way to be accessible," she said. "They often give out their cellular numbers first, as in 'this is where you can reach me, always call me at this number.'"

A 1998 Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group study found that more than half of businesses surveyed cited recurring costs, coverage and network performance as the top factors in wireless purchasing decisions.

These issues are important to all business segments, and like most carriers, you probably conduct focus groups and surveys to ensure you're providing what your customers want. Despite such efforts, many carriers still fail to meet the needs of small- and medium-size business customers. As a result, small companies in smaller markets often must purchase service from two, even three carriers to get what they want.

Coverage is the most important factor for St. Joseph Light & Power, a 350-employee electric and gas utility in St. Joseph, MO, that serves a 3,300-square-mile area in northwest Missouri. The utility company equips 75 of its service personnel, line crews and electricians with wireless phones for calling customers and as an alternate communications source to their truck radios, according to Scott Pemberton, tech supervisor.

Four years ago, the company contacted Southwestern Bell and Cellular One for wireless service.

"We chose to get mobile phones partly to relieve some of the congestion on our radio system," Pemberton said. "(We serve) a large-square-mile area and a lot of rural area, so we need to have decent coverage."

Southwestern Bell provides the majority of Light & Power's wireless service. Pemberton said it covers most of the areas the company serves, with a few minor coverage holes.

Pemberton said employees also use Cellular One. Why two carriers? Because customer service is a concern as well.

"My communications technician would like the customer service to be a little better with Southwestern Bell," Pemberton explained. "He said Cellular One has better customer service, but their coverage isn't as nice as Southwestern Bell's."

When the company first investigated wireless service, the two carriers it chose were the only ones in the marketplace at the time. Since then, Light & Power has expanded its wireless horizons to include Nextel.

Supervisors like Nextel's digital cellular and 2-way-radio features. The company, which has used the phones for almost a year, also likes not paying additional money for those features.

"You're not charged any per-minute charges to use that radio feature; it's just included in your flat rate," Pemberton said. "It also has the text-messaging capabilities and the voice mail all in one unit."

Pemberton said Nextel hasn't replaced the other two carriers because its coverage is "not anywhere close" to the coverage Southwestern Bell or Cellular One provides. But he would use only one carrier if he could get all of the features employees wanted and if the coverage and costs were right.

Using multiple carriers is the "new-school way," said May, and more small and medium businesses are doing that because it makes sense.

"For example, if you have sales or service reps who are in the field and need to cover very broad areas, it might make sense to have a dual-mode cellular phone because they'll need the coverage, and they can use both digital and analog," she said.

According to May, if employees need coverage, companies might go with one of the incumbent cellular carriers, but if they use all of their minutes in one narrow area and a PCS provider has service there, that route may be less expensive.

Pemberton said voice mail is the most important feature for Light & Power's wireless users. He wants to combine the features of pagers and cellular phones into one unit because many employees carry both on the job. More digital service also would help.

"The Nextel units are digital," he said. "The other providers keep saying they're going to get digital service here in our city, but they haven't yet."

SUCCESSFUL SERVICEOnly four employees use wireless phones at Information Management Services in Simi Valley, CA, but the phones are as important as the delivery trucks the employees drive, said Bill Bonar, owner & president.

Bonar has provided his 5-employee company with wireless phones since the 1980s.

Today, Bonar's employees use AirTouch service when they're on the road making deliveries. They just use the basic features and service plan, but Bonar has tailored his wireless service to his business needs.

"I tie my fax machine into the mobile phones so that it rings a certain number and (employees) can tell that there's a fax that needs to be taken care of," he explained.

Bonar also uses Pacific Bell service. He was attracted initially by an offering that included a dual-mode cellular phone, but the carrier's coverage hasn't met his expectations.

"I find that in a lot of areas -- Oak View, San Fernando, Westlake Village -- you can't pick up a signal on PacBell," he said.

Bonar recently renewed his contract with AirTouch because of the carrier's coverage and customer service, even though he is "bombarded by (other competitors') radio and mail advertising."

When his AirTouch contract term expired, he was charged $5 the next month. When he called the carrier, the CSR told him she'd investigate.

"She looked up our usage and then recommended different programs," he said. "She came back with everything I wanted at a lesser cost."

AirTouch's May said quality is more important to smaller companies like Bonar's, and large high-end companies often are more price-sensitive.

"Small companies thrive in this country because they have found a niche they can serve through the quality of service that they provide, and they respect that when they go out looking for vendors," she said. "Maybe the high-volume companies have mandates that they have to go for the lowest bidder or the cheapest (carrier), and some of the smaller businesses may not be run with that kind of iron hand."

This flexibility provides smaller businesses with more service options. Chris Schweitzer, president of Schweitzer, a contracting company based in Battle Creek, MI, chose carriers that could meet his cost and coverage needs.

His 50 employees use 15 Nextel and four Cellular One phones while out in the field, taking advantage of digital, 2-way radio and voice-mail features. Schweitzer uses Cellular One for additional coverage, but said he is "very satisfied with Nextel's 24-hour customer service."

Small- and medium-size businesses respect the fact that they're getting better, quality service through a carrier that may not be the cheapest option out there. And if you're meeting all of your customers' needs, they will devote all of their resources to you.

With fewer than 50 employees, ProTech, in Kirksville, MO, has used United States Cellular's service for six years mainly because of the coverage, but also because of the service, said part owner Emmanuel Bragg. Employees use 35 cellular phones to communicate while maintaining office equipment and computers for the company.

"We were aware of other competitors and choices in the marketplace," Bragg said. "We tried them first (and weren't satisfied)."

Bragg explained that coverage and cost were important factors in switching carriers, but the carrier's good customer service ensures that his company won't churn again.

"When we have a problem they take care of it," Bragg said.

BUILD-TO-SUIT SERVICEAccording to David Friedman, United States Cellular vice president of marketing, you can't assume all businesses are all looking for the same things.

"The key issue is to relate what they want to the features that we have and put together the right packages for them," he said.

May said AirTouch's research, focus groups and surveys have found that for small and medium businesses, price is not as important as "having a strong network and people you can count on who will either call you or whom you can call when you're in a jam or have questions."

"It's a matter of tailoring the rate plan and packages to that customer mix, not only the basic cost in the minutes of use but also the other stuff that they get with it -- features, cost of features, account management, customer service, 24-hour call center," Friedman said.

Because small companies often have more freedom than big corporations, they will spend more time considering carriers. The best thing to do, whether you're trying to court or keep small- and medium-size customers, is to offer them a service plan suited to their business needs. Specialized customer attention now will go a long way toward preventing businesses from saying goodbye later.

How can you keep your current small- and medium-size business customers happy and attract new ones?

1. Put more emphasis on small- and medium-size business customers. Put together a team dedicated to focus specifically on their business needs and provide packages tailored to them.

2. Provide personal customer service. Give your smaller businesses a service representative who understands their needs. When businesses call for help or with questions, find out what they need and call them back promptly instead of putting them on hold.

3. Customer service, 24 hours a day goes a long way, and not all carriers provide it.

4. Reinforce how important your small-business customers are to you. Offer loyalty programs and multiple-line discounts. Calculate discounts by the number of services on an account; the more phones they buy, the better the discount.

5. Be pro-active. Don't just call your business customers when you add new features or introduce new phones; put one in the mail for them to try.

6. Know your small-business accounts and what services are important to them. Provide everything they need so that they won't have to add another carrier's service.

7. Make promises to your small-business customers and then deliver. Don't tell them you're implementing digital service in their markets if there are no immediate plans to do so.

8. Pricing is important, but small and medium businesses are more focused on the value they're getting. They look for plans and promotions that provide them with a good value.

9. Give them technology. Small-business customers, like larger businesses, understand that technology is important. Do you offer good wireless data solutions?

10. Help them optimize their business' productivity. Small- and medium-size businesses have fewer employees, so give them the features and tools to make their jobs easier, such as easy-to-read-and-process bills.