Orange thought about FlexT style tariffs first

[Guest petencl]

Nicked from a post on uk.telecom.mobile:

Orange?s tariff bosses claimed they had the idea of T-Mobile?s Flext tariffs months ago, but rejected it in favour of the upcoming Animals tariffs.

Neil Macgeorge, director of pay monthly at Orange, said: ?We looked at a value-based bundle, but it doesn?t necessarily make it easy for the customer. Customers don?t necessarily want to think about minutes and text.?

http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/artman-test/p...icle_1261.shtml

Funny, I guess Orange don't necessarily want to think about customers either!

[Guest moroni]

my orange rep just says that they are after having quality customers rather than sheer volume of them, i guess thats why they have really easy credit checks and uncompetitive tariffs then!

but seriously, surely its better to have an attractive tariff with lots of value for the customer than have no customers? even if it only makes a small amount for the company the sheer volume of the customer numbers will soon rack it up to big profit levels.

[Guest sporkguy]

A customer is a customer at the end of the day :)

Both Flext and the new Animal tariffs have their plus points - its going to be hard to decide between the two for some customers.

I tend to agree with Neil Macgeorge on this one, Flext is a bit hazy for the customers - most want to know up front exactly what they're getting for their money.

There's two sides of the coin I suppose :D

[Guest pd.ryder]

I dunno about confusing, but "fair abuse of the consumer" should have its own clause! I'm very tempted by T-mobile atm, mainly due to their data charges. A ?/Mb on a bolt-on is rediculous these days, particularly now nothing rolls over.

[Guest pd.ryder]

BTW

my orange rep just says that they are after having quality customers

= "high spending customers" or "them wot pays their bills on time" :)

[Guest Swampie]

I tend to agree with Neil Macgeorge on this one, Flext is a bit hazy for the customers - most want to know up front exactly what they're getting for their money.

However I'm sure many people feel they pay for stuff they don't use - eg. 100 text bundle and only use 40 one month and 80 the next. Or they have plenty of minutes left per month but don't send enough texts to justify a bundle (like me!)

With the flext stuff, you get a text every week to say what you've got left, and you know that you'll have up to XX minutes per month, reducing with the number of texts you send.

I guess there is a bit of ambiguity about it - but I see that as a benefit. :)

[Guest moroni]

Apparantly T-mobile will call the customer after 6 months to make sure they are on the most appropriate tariff. The customer cannot migrate downwards themselves for 11 months, but they can change if contacted first by t-mobile.

Sounds like a darned good idea, lets just hope they actually make the calls though.