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Kripa Raman

Picture catches the eye? Just the effect telecom operators want, to beat competition. Their exclusive stores let customers `see and feel' service.

CUSTOMER retention has become the buzz word for wireless operators. So much so, they are trying to be as physically accessible to the customer as possible, never mind the existence of call centres and drop box facilities.

Expanding physical sales and services points is the latest mantra among wireless operators.

While each large operator claims several thousand exclusive outlets across the country, the emphasis is shifting from mere sales and billing to specially cover service and retention activities, says a senior official with one of the operators.

Exclusive stores also result in higher visibility, so precious in these times of severe competition. Recent announcements substantiate this, he says.Tata Teleservices, some time ago, announced that "it is the only telecom operator in the world to have the largest 1000 exclusive `True Value Shoppes' across its 20 circles."

Its CDMA rival, Reliance Infocomm, also announced the launch of its WebWorldExpress (WWE) chain of 1,160 stores across 680 cities, describing it as "the largest exclusive retail network by a single telecom operator in the country."

With some hair-splitting, every operator in the world manages to claim a retail store record of some kind or the other, notes the official. On a more serious note, he points out that visibility is something operators cannot afford to do without. And stores offer enormous visibility.

The Tata Indicom brand, for instance, now has planned its retail intiative on a three-tier basis — the categories being True Value Hub, True ValueShoppe and True Value Express.

True Value Hubs (another category of their stores) will be strategically visible for `high street retailing,' says an official with the company.

The outlets are aimed at achieving visibility, customer touch points and real experience, says a statement from the company quoting Harish Bhat, President, Marketing, TTSL. "Today, the need of the hour is to provide improved service to both potential and existing customers." All the Tata Indicom products and services will be available through these outlets.

Reliance Infocomm's WWE stores are going to be in addition to its Web World Stores that already have customer care centres. The WWEs are going to redraw customer service, says a senior official with Reliance Infocomm. They are for customer lifecycle management. The Web World Stores do offer customer care management, but they are chiefly for broadband access, video conferencing and the like.

The idea, says the official, is to offer "friendly neighbourhood care that is within a 2-km range of every Reliance Infocomm customer. In fact, there is an incentive for WWE franchisees to see that customers are retained and that payments are made (payment defaults on the part of post-paid customers are a risk for every telecom operator). A commission of around 3 per cent on bills collected is going to be offered to the franchisee, he says."Through these stores, we will hand-hold the customer for all telecommunication needs throughout the customer's life span with Reliance Infocomm," says a statement from the company.

It says over 8,000 personnel have been trained to deal with customers. The stores are meant to go beyond just selling handsets and accessories.

The WWEs, in turn, will be linked through the company's wireless Internet connectivity for coordination; the whole Web will be monitored from the Reliance Infocomm headquarters. In fact, a national centre for monitoring the WWEs' functioning is planned to be set up.

An indicative feature of the importance that operators attach to such stores is that every one of them wants to have a presence near a mall or large department store.

It is not uncommon for large retail conglomerations to describe, among their many attractions, an Airtel store or a Hutch one.

In these days of intense competition, customer-nannying is the name of the game.

kripram@thehindu.co.in

Picture by P.V. Sivakumar

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