Thursday, March 05, 2015

Trying to unbundle package prices

Three things buyers are really interested in - does it do what I want, what is the price, and can I have it now? Product, Price and Place.

Known as the four P's of marketing - with the other being 'Promotion.' Recently I  have had cause to try to unravel the price of telephone calls which proved pretty challenging! Along with energy companies and banks, telecoms companies are pushing hard to dispense with paper bills and in fact charge for the service of providing them. OK so once the bill is retrieved from the Internet we find a typical quarterly bill runs to 7 or 8 pages of A4.

Payments are made monthly, charges for 'price packages' are monthly in advance and calls outside the   plan charged in arrears. Price increases involve refunding a portion of the advance charge, charging the new higher amount and allocating to the portion of the quarter to which the increase applies. So all straight forward so far. These are then totted up compared with your monthly payments, adjusted for any credit or debit brought forward and there is what you owe - or in credit if you are lucky. Now, try un-bundling the cost of calls from the packages so you can figure out how much it costs each time you call someone.

This price bundling gets even harder to work out for satellite TV  subscriptions. Deals of the discount type are reserved for new customers, whereas deals for existing customers are it seems opportunities to buy additional services, not to be rewarded for loyalty, by discounts. Banks similarly keep their loyal customers on the lowest interest rates for savings. Energy bills present similar challenges. It is also quite difficult to discuss price because the numbers you are given to call are for telesales people, anxious to upsell the package. A 30 minute call leads nowhere except back to the beginning when you are offered to be put through to the right department.

Perhaps it is this  pricing strategy that has created an opportunity for price comparison sites which seem to be running major marketing campaigns right now. Some of these TV  commercials can only be described as bizarre - from talking meerkats (compare the meerkat - get it?) to Sharon Osbourne holding a dog while a folically challenged man in suit jacket and lady's shorts and stiletos flounces past. Would you trust these guys to figure out a good price deal? Or is this really another sales ploy? 






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