V Cast? Who Needs It? Who Cares?
Interesting April 24, 2006 NY Times Business section article:
"Cellphone companies, especially Sprint and Verizon Wireless, have been aggressively promoting mobile video services, which cost an average of $10.70 a month for access to sports, news and weather clips. More than a quarter (28 percent) of cellphones now in use can play such videos. But only 1 percent of wireless subscribers are using their phones to watch them, according to a recent survey by the NPD Group, a market research firm.
Worse for the industry, most of those who do watch video on their cellphones have been with their current service provider for at least three years, meaning that they were not drawn by the availability - or the marketing - of mobile video. W ...
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"Cellphone companies, especially Sprint and Verizon Wireless, have been aggressively promoting mobile video services, which cost an average of $10.70 a month for access to sports, news and weather clips. More than a quarter (28 percent) of cellphones now in use can play such videos. But only 1 percent of wireless subscribers are using their phones to watch them, according to a recent survey by the NPD Group, a market research firm.
Worse for the industry, most of those who do watch video on their cellphones have been with their current service provider for at least three years, meaning that they were not drawn by the availability - or the marketing - of mobile video. W ...
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Im soooo using this against my corp rep!!! 😈
She always says... "people from you store are calling in to add vcast and text and ect."
yeah right.
She always says... "people from you store are calling in to add vcast and text and ect."
yeah right.
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You know what though you need to push the vcast service and the free trial period. Many people will use it because it is free and a few of them may even like the service, and of course there are those that will forgot about it and never remove the feature for that reason. From what I am seeing there are many, many people who call and add text and pix after the POS and that means we as sales people are missing out on a lot of commisions. It is up to the sales people to create a buzz about the products and services that the company offers. If we use it and show excitement about it than our customers will do the same thing.
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Celling_it,
Your attitude is exactly what gets your customers ticked off at cellular carriers. Sure, sell as much as possible to increase commissions... the customer be damned. So what, if they forget to notice that they've been billed monthly for services they've never used.
I'm guilty of not noticing that when I re-up'd my service the last time I used my New Every Two for replacement phones, the sales guy added a $5.00 monthly charge for something or other that I never asked for. I woke up a month or two later and had the "error" corrected and my account credited.
Your attitude is exactly what gets your customers ticked off at cellular carriers. Sure, sell as much as possible to increase commissions... the customer be damned. So what, if they forget to notice that they've been billed monthly for services they've never used.
I'm guilty of not noticing that when I re-up'd my service the last time I used my New Every Two for replacement phones, the sales guy added a $5.00 monthly charge for something or other that I never asked for. I woke up a month or two later and had the "error" corrected and my account credited.
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Hold up you totally misunderstood what I said. I was not saying to add features to customers acct without there consent. I was saying that you get a 30 day free trial of vcast when you sign up for it so you must position to the customer in such a way that the customer is interested in trying the service and accepting the feature being added to their account. Now it is inevitable that some people will use the service at first and then stop using it but forget to call and have the feature removed from there account. That is in no way the fault of anyone but the customer. Just for your information I want you to know that in corporate stores it is policy to have the customer initial next to each additional feature that is added to the accou...
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I do all those things. I make every customer initial next to any add on, insurance, and activation fees (if applicable).
On the note of "talking Vcast up and selling it." I do. I explain the features, abilities, and added benifits like UNL Mobile Web and GIT surfing. Im trying my best to get this add on everytime.
That and Ringback Tones. They are cool to me, and I show every person mine.
I just think my demographic isn't about these things (thier kids are - thank god).
On the note of "talking Vcast up and selling it." I do. I explain the features, abilities, and added benifits like UNL Mobile Web and GIT surfing. Im trying my best to get this add on everytime.
That and Ringback Tones. They are cool to me, and I show every person mine.
I just think my demographic isn't about these things (thier kids are - thank god).
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my opinion is that US carriers and subscribers are far behind times. Asian and European carriers are already making great use of this service and many other services such as real time video streaming and being able to purchase from vending machines using their cell phones. It may seem pretty stupid and useless to you now but those that like to be ahead of the 'behind' country that we live in are already finding it a necessity. Look at picture messaging. I admit when they first started selling picture phones i was like, what's the use. Now I couldn't imagine life without one. If you want to go back even further look at cell phones period. They're still considered a luxury by the goverment which is why you are taxed so high on them but everyon...
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nobody NEEDS vcast or powervision, just like nobody NEEDS satellite TV or broadband. People pay for it because they want it. vcast and power vision are just segways into higher end mobile video like mediaflo and the other services that will be launched in the next year or two.
When text messaging first came out nobody used that either, the carriers have to introduce it, then get people to buy into it (which is a slow process) and then people will be more interested in the live TV feature that they'll charge twice as much for.
I will admit that vcast is a little too expensive, it should be a little cheaper for it to catch on with the average customer...but what are ya gonna do.
>>>WZjerry---I hear you, my managers want us to see vc...
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When text messaging first came out nobody used that either, the carriers have to introduce it, then get people to buy into it (which is a slow process) and then people will be more interested in the live TV feature that they'll charge twice as much for.
I will admit that vcast is a little too expensive, it should be a little cheaper for it to catch on with the average customer...but what are ya gonna do.
>>>WZjerry---I hear you, my managers want us to see vc...
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urnamehere,
I concur that nobody NEEDS those features. They also don't NEED to carry around a magnifying glass to watch TV and they don't NEED to charge their batteries a couple of times a day to support the extra power draw of V Cast's video AND audio in addition to the other uses of their phones.
I concur that nobody NEEDS those features. They also don't NEED to carry around a magnifying glass to watch TV and they don't NEED to charge their batteries a couple of times a day to support the extra power draw of V Cast's video AND audio in addition to the other uses of their phones.
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Well if you want to get technical there are only three basic needs in life -- food, clothing and shelter. No one really needs anything beyond those three basic things in life, but we all wany much more than that. So basically vcast can be lumped in with all things that are not food, clothing or shelter. Examples would be money, companionship, a job, a car,..... I think that you see where I am going with this. Different strokes for different folks is what it comes down too.
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Celling_it said:
Well if you want to get technical there are only three basic needs in life -- food, clothing and shelter. .
I need to have my paintball gun and a cell phone 🙂
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That's a pretty pesimistic view for something I assume you don't have. Vcast is still a child when compared to other features. From personal experiance I like it. And yes I pay for it allthough I don't have to use a magnifying glass or constantly charge my battery. Must be the huge 8100 screen.
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I would love to be able to watch live TV. Im a huge news and history channel freak.
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I tried VCast with that month free promo. I don't think i'm gonna pay $15 a month to watch 3 min video clips. And I never had the intention to download music from it either. Ontop of the constant SERVER ERRORS, I can't find the music I want. So yeah, $5 for Mobile Web 2.0 sounds better than $15 for VCAST. IMO of course.
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