‘We can’t sit on our laurels’

While price could be a determining factor for some people, customer service could be the key in attracting people in the new telecom era.

Frank Amaral, CellOne’s COO, told the Bermuda Sun’s Don Burgess he is proud of his company’s innovations in giving the best service to its customers.

We sat down with him to ask about what’s ahead for the mobile phone provider and the state of the industry.

Since telecom reform, CellOne has not announced any new services. Is there something in the pipeline?

We did a blast out to our customers last month about new services. Obviously home Internet is going to be something we’re going to be looking to launch. But we can’t make any announcements about what those things are and when they’re going to be available simply because… we are dominate designated so at the current time we need to continue to offer what we were offering under the old regime. There are a couple of things that are waiting to be completed by the regulator so that we’re going to be able to know when we’re able to launch new services.

Do you feel like you have to offer new services in order to compete under the new one licence system?

Yes, absolutely. Customers are expecting it. We’ve been around a bunch of years and we’ve done a really good job at what we currently do within the mobile segment. We just won for the third year in a row The Best of Bermuda Award from The Bermudian Magazine. We do a pretty good job in terms of our network service and our customer service — we’ve had some innovation in terms of the devices we’ve brought to the market and the right plans we’ve brought to the market like the family plan where we have the 250 daily prepaid plan. Customers like what we have and are expecting more. We also want to do more simply because there’s opportunity to add on additional services and revenue to our existing base. 

What’s been the biggest challenge in telecom reform?

We’re a small company so these consultation documents turn into a bunch of work. We have to figure strategically how we’re going to navigate our way through all this, especially with launching new services. It’s not just a case of waking up and decide we’re going to start selling Internet or long distance. There is a cost to implementing these things so it is a bit of a trick figuring out what we’re going to do. It is also keeping everybody patient because we are anxious to launch new services. Our customers are asking us when we’re going to do home Internet. 

Your core business has a product, mobile phones, where people replace it on a regular basis whether they need to or not. How does that help CellOne going forward?

Just because it’s a have-to-have service, it doesn’t mean we can sit on our laurels. We continue to look at the market to figure out what customers want. We were the first to have true 24/7 customer service. You can call our reps at 3am to pay your bill. You can call at 5am and disconnect your phone if you’ve lost it. We were the first to launch that by allowing our reps to have real time access to our billing and provisions system. We’ve had innovative rate plans. We were the first to market family plans. We have to continue to innovate and continue to add value to the customer even though it is a must-have service.

You talked about home Internet pricing has gone as low as you think it will, so does then customer service become the key factor for consumers?

We work pretty hard to get things right. We don’t get it right 100 per cent of the time, but we try to get the customer’s experience in the store right. Our latest innovation is to get away from the old queuing up system in the store. We’re the only carrier on the island who has a greeter/expediter person on the floor. When you walk into the store you get greeted by that rep to find out why they are in the store; do they even need to be in the store to begin with? Maybe we can get them onto the call centre to get the issue resolved. If they need to be in the store, they can mingle around until we call their name. We’re trying to figure out the best experience for the customer. 

With the one licence system for all operators, do you feel that there are too many players and there will be some sort of shakeout with more mergers?

There have been a lot of mergers and acquisitions activity for the last few years with the big one being Logic and North Rock. There are fewer and fewer guys left, but there’s still room for a little bit more of that because there are efficiencies to be gained on the back office side. Home Internet prices are now 50 per cent less than they were a couple of months ago. That’s about new entrants bringing down prices because they already have an ongoing business where they are already selling services that cover their expenses. The incremental cost of launching new services is nowhere near the same so this is why Greg (Swan) at TBi has been able to take the first kick of the can and bring prices down (see separate story on page 19). I definitely think there will be another round of mergers and acquisitions. The consumer has reaped the biggest bang for the buck on the prices coming down. There’s not a lot of room left for home Internet pricing (to come down). 

How much of an advantage is it for CellOne to be the authorized iPhone seller in Bermuda?

The iPhone has been pretty important for us. A good portion of our smartphone sales are coming from the iPhone. Being the only carrier on the island that’s authorized by Apple for it is we’re able offer the 12-month manufacturer warranty. If you come to us you don’t need to go to anybody else. We do everything you need so when you leave the store, the phone is working. That’s a big plus for the customer.

How much of a big deal is Black Friday now?

We have to give credit to M3 Wireless for bringing that to the island. It use to be the wireless carriers but every year other retailers are jumping on board. People lining up is all part of the Black Friday phenomenon. It’s a good time to see our customers and people are pretty excited about getting a good deal on a phone. It’s not going to go away. It’s caused a bit of mayhem for us. That night is a lot of preparation for us and we have a lot of exhausted people the next day, but it’s not going away.