You lost the love....

Hey Mobile Network Operator just what is going on. We have been together for some years now and whilst my love of mobile has grown stronger you have lost the love for me you once had. When we first started you were happy and helpful, giving and gracious. Nothing was too much for you, my calls were picked up by a human quickly and presents were given. Today it takes an age to get through the machine before a grumpy despondent surly conversation leaves me thinking why did I call because you don't love me any more.

I pay my bill on time, I accept you declining coverage when it comes to a phone call and the fact that when ever possible you hand me off to a wifi network. I know that the present of a new shinny device once a year was too much to ask and can now wait two years or go out and buy a replacement device myself.

Yet you now seem to think that the transaction should be something that is best undertaken at lowest cost despite the fact that I still manage to spend £100+ when others around are giving you far less each month. I know that at this time my leaving to join another makes no sense as you are working to an Industry Standard but it cannot be sustained soon I could become a nomad and operate with just wifi and tablet. I am not someone who is looking for the lowest transaction cost but rather the service that my loyalty and spend justify when seen against the average. Keeping me is about more than a calculation of margin over Subscriber Acquisition Cost it is about your Brand Values meaning something.

Looking at Twitter and chatting with mates it seems that I am not the only one that feels that you have lost the love for the consumer. It is not that our standards are raised rather that yours have dropped. Soon I will be embarrassed to say that I work in the Mobile Industry and can no longer recommend my supplier to those looking to change as at this time the reasons to change are difficult to see.

Please roll back the changes, stop trying to be a faceless heartless corporate and show some empathy not just for me but for each of the contract customers once more. You might just be rewarded yourself with growing revenues and fewer contract cancelations.         

It's not about the technology....

A friend on Twitter pointed me at this article on how Blackberry could have avoided becoming a footnote in business study classes looking at the Kodak Moment.

I am surprised that someone who works for an Advertising Agency fails to point to the obvious factors in Apples success.  When none of the others were directly advertising to the consumer on TV, Apple were.  When few were advertising handsets in the Press Apple did. Others at that time had stopped advertising above the line because they were selling products via Partners those partners were the Mobile Operators who used the coop funds to pay for in store and brochures which lets face it looks old and out of date compared to Apple.

NOTHING on a iPhone was new to the mobile industry what was fresh was the promotion and development of the aspirational quality of the handset.  It has been helped by the "exclusivity" model used by Apple to "limit" mass market appeal. This fashion label allowed Apple for a time to lead the Smartphone market but was quickly overtaken in terms of volume by Samsung who used it's Far East cooperation ethos to appeal to those that where anti-Apple to grab the market.

The big question is will my Grandchildren read that Apple was just another Levis Strauss in that it helped establish a sector, almost died, had a return to fashion and then a slow but inevitable decline?

An act of stupidity by a desperate Prime Minister

I picked up my morning paper and almost tore it in two reading the latest stupid PR stunt from David Cameron. When Ed Miliband made his Conference Speech this September we were told that price controls could not work and were wrong. Yet with his back to the wall Dave has decided that all utility companies need to be told that his government will not accept price rises in the run up to the 2015 election.

This is an act akin to King Canute except the Prime Minister does not understand that he cannot turn back the tide of price increases.

An analysis of the players in the market will show that many are subsidiaries of  overseas businesses rather than British and thus have little loyalty to local politicians. They are in the majority investing in significant infrastructure programs that mean that rather than pay taxes they have losses to cover.

What the Prime Minister should be doing via the offices of the Department of Culture Media and Sport and Ofcom is making sure that telecoms networks are able to deploy high speed broadband to the majority of the population in the majority of places. It is with such a network that the economy will grow and income rise at such a level that people do not feel price rises.