Southern Phone Company – missed opportunity
I got another spam phone call today from an Indian call centre. They had all the usual characteristics:
- The one minute delay upfront.
- They knew who I was, but did not say who they were.
- They talked AT me; with the fake “you are my long lost friend” tone.
- The script was very defensive – we are a community organisation, we are incorporated in Australia…
The community organisation part did perk my interest. But I assumed it was probably a lie, and told them to piss off.
The really sad thing was, Southern Phone Company is real! They are community based. And community owned. And 100% Australian.
And now I hate them as much as I hate any other business who makes unsolicited and disrespectful phone calls.
Southern Phone Company completely blew their one major differentiator, by sinking to using the same low-brow hard-sell technique that every other small and try-hard telco uses. No doubt, this decision was probably driven by the same short-term symptomatic fix mentality that runs other telcos. It does not bode well for their community efforts.
According to their website, they are supposed focused on regional Australia and the specific telecommunications challenges there in. The reason regional Australia is so poorly looked after by telcos is because the bush is imply not lucrative enough – it simply costs more to service regional customers.
And now this supposedly regional-focused business is trying to get into the urban market. By using the lowest common denominator way to do it. It says volumes – and the wrong things about Southern Phone Company.
They have a powerful cause that could have been leveraged to garner support from both regional and urban customers. Cause-based businesses and marketing works. But they blew it!
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7 comments on “Southern Phone Company – missed opportunity”
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i had a call from them and it is not the first , they act as if they are calling on behalf of telstra as they mention their name a lot. i asked where they were ringing from and the guy with the indian acent said sydney, the call was late in the afternoon about 4.30 and i was put onto the supervisor and he said it was morning , so hey were they in sydney… i dont think so…. why do they lie?
The funny thing is Joy, they would not think of this lapse in integrity as “lying”.
And yet, to customers, these inconsistencies make the company untrustworthy. They are seen as “lies”.
i had a call from them this afternoon and they claimed they were funded by the federal goverment, and yes Telstra was mention alot as well. If they were set up to sevice the regional areas why are they the urban market????
i have saved lot of money with southern phone company.
idon’t think this company has a bad reputation in the market.yes i have also received a call from indian call center but that telemarketer was good to me.
Thanks for the comment john. You make a good point.
They obviously provide service, and probably have many many happy customers. And to these customers, their reputation’s probably good, or at the worst; neutral.
Not being an existing customer, my post was about my response to the first contact with them.
I have worked for southern phone company (Head office in Moruya NSW)and the call centers who are independent companys had a list of instructions to stick to but a lot of the time they did not as the operators are paid by the number of clients they sign up so they tend to bend the truth. Southern Phone company is a good and fair teleco and is owned by NSW councils only and profits are returned to the community
Thanks Peter. Southern Phone company would have presented a much more compelling, unique and strong position had they chose a method of marketing/signing up new customers that is actually sympathetic to their values. This sort of piecemeal approach, where different aspects of a business act independently of the core values/purpose, communicates a lack of brand integrity. To the detriment of the business!