I was thinking if I should write a post about this and finally decided to actually do it. At the first instance, I wanted just to complain and then decided to analyse it business and communication wise.
To put it briefly, Vip Mobile Serbia part of Mobilkom Austria network is “selling” its debts to the “debt hunting” companies. Nothing would be especially strange in this story that my debt was not 2.000 RSD (below 20 EUR) and that I was not one month late with the payments.
The similar thing already happened couple of months before, I was contacted by the “debt hunting” agency and a rude operator communicated with me aggressively, and the debt was in the similar amount (below 20 EUR). After sending an e-mail explaining this situation I got no response from the company, and it happened again.
The reason behind this post is not complaining, but a critique of the communication style of Vip Mobile, done professionally.
So, the service I signed-up for is the mobile internet, the monthly fee for these services is 1.000 RSD (below 10 EUR) which is around 120 EUR per year. Soon as I signed up for the service I recommended it to a lot of my friends as a value for money way to surf the internet on the go. As a result, I know for sure that 15 of my friends signed-up for the same service, some even took a more expensive service (around 16 EUR, yearly around 190 EUR). Probably some of their friends also signed-up for the service due to their recommendation, and let’s say that at least 5 of their friends signed-up.
To better explain this I have made the graph below depicting the amount of people and the revenue coming from them, by taking the mid-level package (10 EUR) and calculating on the yearly level.
This represents at least around 11.000 EUR revenue per year, excluding more expensive package, excluding additional services that these people might be using. Now, going back to me being disappointed about the service, meaning that I will cancel the service and for a certain period of time, no matter how good the actual service could be, won’t be using Vip Mobile services. Aditionaly, I will communicate this to my friends, telling them about my experience which can result in more service cancelling. They will talk to their friends and you will see the power of butterfly effect.
If we take that not all of the connected friends will cancel the service, but rather 30% of them, this means at least around 3.000 EUR less revenue per year. You would argue that this does not mean much to the big Telco company, but, if you look at the amount of money that they are “lacking” due to my late payments (20 EUR for two months, remember?) it is not hard to conclude that they are losing revenue (my own, and from other people cancelling or switching service), loyal consumers and damaging their image.
So, what is the fix?
First, classification of the customers by their debt, if someone is owing the company serious amounts or is late more than 6 months then the problem should be transferred to the “debt hunting” companies because you have a firm reason to do so. Also, they must think about the potential of the customers, as for example I was considering some expensive packages as I can afford it, so I am a high potential customer.
Secondly, pay attention to customers’ e-mails, complaints, suggestions, because not all of them are crazy and boring.
Lastly, in the high competitive market (7 million people, 3 mobile telephony companies) you just cannot lose customers because of ridiculous reasons.
To conclude, a company like Vip Mobile Serbia, that has one of the best customer services must pay attention to this kind of mistakes.
Disclaimer: This article is written based on the personal experience of the author. All the amounts and calculations used in the business overview are used only as a fiction to depict the subject of the text.
