I’m always roasting VirginMobile because of the chasm between their “sexy” marketing and their abysmal customer service. This was one of the themes of the recent C3 event we put on in San Francisco — how companies need to coordinate the two sides of the business or find themselves in trouble or missing opportunities.
A relatively new TV spot (below) for the company, which in the US is owned by Sprint, shows a young woman stalking a potential or former boyfriend. She’s texted him but he won’t respond. She can wait, however, because she can go online with her Android phone with unlimited Web access — and so on.
One of the things she does while waiting for him is check in on Foursquare; she’s the “mayor of Brad’s closet.” Those not creeped out by the fact that she’s stalking him might find the ad amusing.
Virgin’s plans are basically the cheapest around for what they provide. So there’s the perception of both hipness and value — marketing objectives accomplished.
But once you’re a customer and have to deal with a human in customer care it’s an absolute nightmare. The company uses poorly trained reps in Nicaragua. Some of them have great English skills and some are from a SNL skit about outsourced customer service. They tell you “I’ll take care of it” and “it” doesn’t happen.
My 11 year old daughter has the service and I’ve had to call them several times, including when her phone was stolen. Once again: total incompetence in the contact center. Virgin doesn’t make the connection between between poor customer care and brand identity. But look at these page one search results that seek the “corporate phone number:”
Arguably only existing customers will do this search but the presence of these results on page one is destructive of the brand and the company’s reputation. Accordingly companies must see customer service as an integral part of their “social media” strategies.
Neglect of customer service will come back to bite companies on the brand and marketing side — if not immediately then eventually. Penny wise, pound foolish.
February 17th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Greg,
I really appreciate this article. I am hopeful that especially with the increasing ubiquity of social media, companies will realize that marketing and customer care need to be linked at the hip.
Shawn
February 17th, 2011 at 6:29 pm
Yes. Thanks Shawn. Hopefully they’ll figure that out. There’s some lip service paid to that proposition but little action so far.
February 17th, 2011 at 11:35 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by GetGuarantee and funatmarketing, Harumi Santillan. Harumi Santillan said: Marketing-Customer Care Divide: VirginMobile Edition: I'm always roasting VirginMobile because of the chasm betw… http://bit.ly/ijuwFy [...]
February 18th, 2011 at 1:24 pm
In this well connected world, the real difference between success and failure will be word of mouth and you demonstrate a concrete example of how this will manifest itself in digital media.
It’s much faster and cheaper to make an unhappy customer happy than it is to fix all the damage done by bad word of mouth. In addition, the customer loyalty that comes from righting a wrong is amazing but this takes a long-term approach to business and most businesses are too short term focused right now.
Anyway, great write up. Keep up the excellent work.
February 18th, 2011 at 1:51 pm
Thanks. I obviously agree with you. Customers need to invest in better service as a cornerstone of their social media strategies.
February 21st, 2011 at 9:26 pm
[...] and “virgin mobile.” For both formulations of the query my post Marketing-Customer Care Divide: VirginMobile Edition is now on page one of Google. For “virginmobile” it’s the sixth organic [...]
February 27th, 2011 at 10:31 pm
By talking about marketing so much, you open the door for criticism of your failure to understand some of its core concepts.
Virgin Mobile, at least in the US market, isn’t aiming for the top spot. Its marketing team fully understands its weaknesses. But the team also correctly recognizes its strength, which you have acknowledged in your article — providing the cheapest plan that includes those services.
Virgin simply does not make enough money on the plans it sells to be able to hire good ol’ Americans as their customer service reps. Its competitors have far better customer service — but to have access to it, you need to pay substantially more per month. Virgin is not targeting customers like you; Sprint is. Sprint is not under pressure to cut corners like Virgin is, because Sprint’s cheapest usable data-including plan costs $85 per month after taxes, whereas Virgin’s costs $25.
I completely understand how horrible the customer service is — I am a customer. But for those extra $700+ per year, I can put up with the occasional incompetence. (I will note that your daughter is the one who lost her phone. If you avoid reasons to have to deal with customer service, your value goes up even more.)
February 27th, 2011 at 10:39 pm
Do you work for the company?
February 27th, 2011 at 10:45 pm
I would I argue you fail to understand how the market has changed. Regardless of the cost structure of the organization customer service now cannot be ignored.
February 27th, 2011 at 10:55 pm
I’m on your side Greg. That probably wasn’t clear on my last comment. Could you delete it?
February 28th, 2011 at 11:26 am
ok
February 28th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
No, I do not work for the company. Customer Service is not being ignored, it is just not given as much attention (money) as the companies that can afford to allocate that attention to their customer service departments.
The service works, so apart from Activation, there aren’t many reasons why you should be calling customer service. And at the end of the day, they will solve your problem — it just takes a little more patience than the other companies.
Think of it like this, at other companies, you’re paying to have better service. With Virgin, you’re not. They carved out a niche: consumers who want smartphones with unlimited data plans who are unwilling to pay the higher bills. Those consumers need to give SOMEthing up in return for all of that. Virgin picked its customer service.
It could be worse, the company could have cut costs with its phone selection and/or actual service (see Boost Mobile, also owned by Sprint).
February 28th, 2011 at 6:02 pm
Also, to your point about the market changing. Nothing has changed. Virgin is fully aware of what you’re saying. And they don’t care. The happiness they provide their customers is not in how they deal with their problems. It is in how much money they are saving them.
Walmart treats their employees and customers like shit. Yet people still shop there. Why? They save money, so they’re willing to put up with it.
February 28th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Yes . . . people will tolerate bad service for cheaper prices. But there are multiple providers and somebody at some point will differentiate with better service. If bad service is too loudly complained about even low-priced providers will suffer.
March 2nd, 2011 at 10:04 pm
Well, they have had loud complaints since they started. Their business is growing faster than any of the other companies. This will change only if the phone connection service – the very thing customers are buying – declines. But customer service, because it is not a key component to the commodity’s functionality, can be horrible and people will still find value in the overall service. I certainly do.