The First Triple Play Bundle

Let me tell you a Sales & Marketing story about when I was on the team that came up with the first Triple Play Bundle in Telecommunications products. 

In 2004, Bell South was fiercely competing in the US telecommunications markets offering residential and business telephone services plans, internet service plans, cable TV service plans, as well as cellular mobile phone service plans. (Bell South was acquired by AT&T in 2006)

Service providers competed intensely for market-share of the ~100M US Households already virtually ~95% saturated for telephone and cable TV service, but lots of headroom upside for mobile phone and internet market penetration for ‘customer share of wallet’. 

This was still the pre-smartphone era, so Nokia, Motorola, Sony, Ericsson and increasingly, Samsung and RIM’s Blackberry were the dominant and emerging brands. Mobile phone capabilities were limited to local, national, and int’l calling. Voicemail, ring-tones, and music were very limited, and considered luxury services. 

Competition was cut-throat and service plans were generally sold in annual contracts or pre-paid minutes, which were costly, but the best option for many customers who could not afford an annual contract commitment, or who didn’t qualify due to credit requirements. 

There was a lot of customer switching between service providers, what the industry measures as ‘customer churn’, causing service providers to spend heavily trying to establish customer loyalty. 

A key Operating financial fact was that while Bell South owned copper telephone cables, it did not own any cellular network and had limited TV cable network infrastructure. This meant that the marginal cost of serving one incremental telephone customer was ~$0, while the marginal cost of serving one additional cellular or cable TV customer came with measurable marginal cost. 

Nonetheless, my hypothesis was that cellular phone and cable TV customers were much more loyal, or ‘sticky’ to use the industry jargon, and generated more profit. 

Problem Statement: What is the total profit of each customer type, based on which products they purchase and how long they remain a subscriber of each individual product?

I didn’t know it at that time, but I was pioneering the early marketing analyses that would become known as ‘Customer Lifetime Value’ or “CLTV”. 

I requested access to all customer data across the entire Bell South customer base for a period of 5 years, and requested that data to include columns indicating which customers subscribed to which products for each monthly billing cycle. 

I could now see which customers stayed with Bell South the longest number of billing cycles, and which products those customers subscribe to, then compare them against one another in any combination of ways using tables and spreadsheets.  

I created pivot tables and used vlookup formulas to structure and organize the customer data into clusters and archetypes of similar profiles. When telling business stories, it always helps to humanize the data by providing sample customer profiles with specific attributes and consumer behaviors personified with a name. 

‘Darlene, Head of Household, earning 15% above the local area median HH income with two children and one elderly family member. Telephone usage habits include: heavy local calling, some long-distance calls, but strong emerging demand for internet service as children require internet access for school. 

Darlene is a strong candidate for a bundled offer that includes 1. Phone service, 2. Internet service, and 3. Cable TV service, if offered for a good deal. The CLTV analysis enabled me to determine the $ value that could be offered as a sign-up promotion, e..g., Triple Play bundle for 2-year commitment with $200 cash back or rebate. 

I pitched the Darlene profile promotion to the CMO and his staff and they greenlighted a large pilot. It was the first time that Bell South was offering service plan promotions >$50, let alone $200. I created the promotion offerings based on the CLTV analysis that I had completed. 

I shared those promotion parameters with the marketing team and a couple weeks later the first promotional offers were going out by snail mail and being pitched to customers who contacted the customer service hotline. 

It was the first time my work had actually touched a customer and impacted a Fortune 500 company’s operations. I had tasted the impact of hypothesis-driven, data analysis, insights generation and customer-centric storytelling. 

The learnings from that client engagement stick with me even today. 

A deep understanding of consumer behavior, coupled with hypothesis driven deep data analysis, can reveal worthwhile offerings that customers demand. 

Concise and personable storytelling can influence senior management and get your ideas implemented on the front lines. 

Whether it’s a Triple Play Bundle, or a new product/service offering in your market segment, deep customer insights and hypothesis-driven experiments can drive growth. 

Let my passion and experience for Sales & Marketing help your business grow. Reach out today.