Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, May 06, 2004 |
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Marketing
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Strategy Info-Tech - Telecommunications `Hunters and farmers' to bring business to Bharti Telenet Our Bureau
Chennai , May 5 HUNTERS and farmers, the two don't necessarily go together, but in Bharti Telenet they do. And, each has a distinct but complementary role to play. One hunts for subscribers and the other nurtures these subscribers. Bharti believes that it is this kind of customer service that will set it apart from other telecom companies, especially in the fixed line business. Company officials say that Bharti is the first telecom company in the country to take this kind of sales initiative. Bharti Telenet Ltd, the Bharti group company that deals with the fixed line telephone service, Touchtel, has divided its sales force into hunters and farmers. The hunters have to go into the field and bring in the subscribers. After that, the farmers will regularly interact with the subscribers, analyse their usage pattern and see if they will be better off in a different plan package and then convince the subscribers to shift to that plan. (Incidentally, the State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has a built-in software in its billing system that analyses the subscriber's usage pattern and fits him or her into the "best value plan.") Mr M.S. Ravichandran, Chief Technology Officer, Bharti Telenet Ltd, Tamil Nadu, said that the 700-odd strong sales force in Tamil Nadu has been divided into hunters and farmers. The farmers explain to the customers the best-fit plan, only after which the subscribers shift to a plan that suits their pattern of usage. Mr Ganesh Mahadevan, Head - Sales, said that it was this kind of interaction among subscribers that would help Bharti acquire new subscribers as it would help distinguish the company from other telecom operators. The two were addressing a press conference here on Wednesday to highlight Touchtel's reduction in long-distance tariffs. Calls within Tamil Nadu will cost Rs 1.69 a minute, while it could be Rs 2.40 in fixed line services offered by competitors. Calls to places such as Bangalore and Mumbai would cost Rs 2.99 per minute against Rs 3.99 last year. A Touchtel release said that 40 per cent of STD users called locations beyond 200 km and 60 per cent called locations inside Tamil Nadu. A call to the US would now cost Rs 6.99 a minute and to West Asia Rs 15.99 per minute. The call rates were uniform, irrespective of whether they were made to a fixed line or a mobile phone. Mr Mahadevan said there was a significant shift in ISD calls; earlier, most ISD calls were incoming ones, whereas now there was an increase in outgoing ISD calls, especially to countries in West Asia from the residential segment of Touchtel's subscribers. Mr Ravichandran said Touchtel had 1.40 lakh subscribers in Tamil Nadu, of which one lakh were in Chennai. The subscriber base for the broadband connection was about 14,000. Mr Mahadevan said about 2,000 subscribers to the broadband service were being added every month. Mr Mahadevan said Touchtel also offered a facility called "parallel ringing," where a Touchtel subscriber could give his or her mobile phone number. Thus, when a call was made to the fixed line, both the fixed line and mobile phone would ring and the subscriber could choose which phone to pick the call on. Touchtel planned to make this scheme more attractive for its subscribers.
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