topic Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion in Get Support

Merits of a Targeted Promotion

will13am — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 07:12:55 GMT

This is a worthy topic for discussion given the terms for the latest promotion. Personally, I think it is more gimmick than anything else. There is nothing to stop people from getting a new Freedom plan and porting the number over just to get access to this promotion. Because this backdoor is quite open, why bother? A non targeted promotion would garner way more new subscribers. Besides, this alienates some of the existing customer base that may have missed out on the 2016 fall promotion.

Thoughts?

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

kav2001c — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 04:27:45 GMT

I think it is more to limit system crash that happened back in fall

This is more of a test of promo and new fail safes

I am personally hoping for a much bigger promo come Canada Day

Cmon Public, national calling

You can do it

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

Mana — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 04:30:50 GMT

@will13am I think you are right.

I am pretty sure people will be rushing to freedom to temporary get a number and then port into PM to take advantage of this promo. Why give freedom any business or make them popular, even for a temporary detour???

There is really no way of telling how many of these new PM customers were actually long term freedom customers and how many where just visiting to get this deal.

If we are opening this promo, perhaps going with a wider approach and grab all customers from all carriers, including potential freedom customers would have been a better approach.

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

ShawnC13 — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 04:33:53 GMT

@will13am, I agree that this will alienate some current customers but I do also agree with @kav2001c that this could be a test to see how the fixes that have been applied are actually working for future promos.

I am hoping for something as well at Canada day but I am very happy with what I have now but would always switch to something that is even more suited for my needs

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

imm1304 — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 04:40:17 GMT

Hi @will13am,

I agree. This is an important point of discussion.

I have not been told anything by PM yet.. but the logic seems to be that PM is pre-emptively targetting their main competitor with this promo. Freedom's parent company is ready to spend serious $$ to develop the network.

I am sure there will be other promos that don't have this restriction. A limited promo may also be a strategy to keep the volume manageable and prevent the long wait times that many new customers had to live with during last year's promo. Better to test the system on a smaller scale and prevent the chaos.

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

will13am — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 04:45:23 GMT

@kav2001c wrote:
I think it is more to limit system crash that happened back in fall
This is more of a test of promo and new fail safes

I am personally hoping for a much bigger promo come Canada Day
Cmon Public, national calling
You can do it

The Canada day thing could happen. It is a great opportunity to use a gimmick $150 price. That would slot in a Canada wide calling feature nicely with 12 gigs of data. Definitely not for me though. I would not pay a wooden nickel to change from province wide calling to Canada wide calling. I don't need it and it sends the wrong message to carriers to continue to try and flog long distance charges in an era where the term should be deprecated.

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

will13am — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 05:29:24 GMT

@Mana wrote:
@will13am I think you are right.

I am pretty sure people will be rushing to freedom to temporary get a number and then port into PM to take advantage of this promo. Why give freedom any business or make them popular, even for a temporary detour???

There is really no way of telling how many of these new PM customers were actually long term freedom customers and how many where just visiting to get this deal.

If we are opening this promo, perhaps going with a wider approach and grab all customers from all carriers, including potential freedom customers would have been a better approach.

Count in it. I bet more customers from elsewhere will migrate to this plan than real Freedom customers.

This could create a lot of churn with the existing customer base. Existing customers can port to Freedom and then port back in. Who knows, maybe Freedom would offer some sort of incentive like a free SIM card for new customers. All it would cost is a couple of days of service with Freedom and abandonment of the existing PM account. Churning the existing customer base can be an unintended consquence. D'oh!

BTW, I don't totally buy the keep the sale small so as to not overwhelm the resources. Existing accounts could switch to this plan with a simple future dated plan switch. This should not strain anything and is not worse than churn.

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

SD08 — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 05:02:47 GMT

@will13am wrote:
The Canada day thing could happen. It is a great opportunity to use a gimmick $150 price. That would slot in a Canada wide calling feature nicely with 12 gigs of data. Definitely not for me though. I would not pay a wooden nickel to change from province wide calling to Canada wide calling. I don't need it and it sends the wrong message to carriers to continue to try and flog long distance charges in an era where the term should be deprecated.

@will13am

I'm on the Fall 2016 promo. Like you, I wouldn't pay more for Canada-wide calling, but I would give up some of that 12 GB to have Canada-wide instead of provincial calling, since I don't use more than half of that data anyway. A package of, say, 9 GB + Canada-talk + text for the same price as the Fall promo would be perfect for me. But then it wouldn't have the catchy 150 number in it.

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

will13am — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 05:10:58 GMT

@SD08 wrote:
@will13am wrote:
The Canada day thing could happen. It is a great opportunity to use a gimmick $150 price. That would slot in a Canada wide calling feature nicely with 12 gigs of data. Definitely not for me though. I would not pay a wooden nickel to change from province wide calling to Canada wide calling. I don't need it and it sends the wrong message to carriers to continue to try and flog long distance charges in an era where the term should be deprecated.
@will13am
I'm on the Fall 2016 promo. Like you, I wouldn't pay more for Canada-wide calling, but I would give up some of that 12 GB to have Canada-wide instead of provincial calling, since I don't use more than half of that data anyway. A package of, say, 9 GB + Canada-talk + text for the same price as the Fall promo would be perfect for me. But then it wouldn't have the catchy 150 number in it.

@SD08, I also do not use up all of my 12 gigs of data. Data usage goes up over time. I also don't use much of my unlimited calling and text. I would much prefer to give up some of that for more data or less cost.

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

computergeek541 — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 05:14:32 GMT

Sure, openning up this promo plan to anyone would attract more customers, but we have no idea if that's even the main goal. This plan could just have the sole purpose of taking away customers from Freedom. Public may have also made this decision based on customer service concerns that could be the result of gaining too many new customers in a short period.

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

kav2001c — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 12:57:43 GMT

@Mana understand

1- Public has never condoned the use of temporary numbers on Freedom as a backdoor way to get the promo

2- This gives Freedom no business whatsoever; the costs far outweigh any perceived value

@Mana wrote:

I am pretty sure people will be rushing to freedom to temporary get a number and then port into PM to take advantage of this promo. Why give freedom any business or make them popular, even for a temporary detour???

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

kav2001c — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 13:02:56 GMT

@imm1304 you think so? Even with last transfer Freedom (Shaw) have no spectrum, and no coverage whatsoever

At least out west they can try to use the Shaw WiFi network but out east no coverage at all (esp in Toronto area which is by far thier worst zone)

I doubt Shaw will ever expand coverage since capital costs are way too high and they only have like a million users (most of whom are on prepay or on ridiculous old grandfather plans)

You can see it in their marketing strategy, trying desperately to raise ARPU but always failing and needing to give extra promos (the LTE life plan, the extra gigs, and now a 35% discount off list prices)

I think the new entrants failed. Regardless of how much money they tried to spend.

@imm1304 wrote:

I have not been told anything by PM yet.. but the logic seems to be that PM is pre-emptively targetting their main competitor with this promo. Freedom's parent company is ready to spend serious $$ to develop the network.

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

kav2001c — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 13:05:56 GMT

@will13am failures were rampant, even with existing client base (such as myself) back in the fall

And many of us tried to change plans BEFORE the influx of outside attention

BTW something noone else in this thread has mentioned; you guy do realize that Fido also has a special "competitive Freedom plan" in market right now?

Fido also happens to be alot larger than Public

So this could be causing big headaches over at Freedom

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

will13am — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 13:29:03 GMT

@kav2001c wrote:
@will13am failures were rampant, even with existing client base (such as myself) back in the fall
And many of us tried to change plans BEFORE the influx of outside attention

BTW something noone else in this thread has mentioned; you guy do realize that Fido also has a special "competitive Freedom plan" in market right now?

Fido also happens to be alot larger than Public

So this could be causing big headaches over at Freedom

Do you have a link to the Fido promotion? Back when the 2016 fall promo was on, Fido and virgin had a competing offer going for a short period of time. Competition is good for consumers.

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

xCameron94x — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 13:41:06 GMT

@kav2001c I disagree with this "new entrants failed" line. Shaw/Freedom just purchased spectrum, which will help with not only recepiton/service for 3G, but I think new phones being added for LTE as well. Shaw sold US based Viawest, which will help fund this. Its also investing more money to help with the network. it is a huge move in the right direction.

This move will at least help a bit in terms of competition. When freedom/wind was on its own, it could have failed, but now that Shaw, which is big out west is in charge, i can see them becoming a legitimate compeitor agaisnt the big 3, which Canada needs

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

kav2001c — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 14:01:49 GMT

@xCameron94x sorry but facts are being confused by your patriotism

Prior to Shaw purchase, Wind had far larger international brands backing them up

In old days they had way more money available to build infrastructure but parent companies fled Canada after losing billions

Freedom is a more Canadian brand today, but the plug has basically been pulled

Too many people had horrible experiance and will never even try them again (I think that was main impetus for name change; trying to distance themselves from Wind's history)

Really even Telus never built a national network; they signed roaming agreements with other carriers (most notably Bell)

Now you think Shaw can do what Telus could not? (And Telus had far more subs back then than Wind ever had)

Shaw's shareholder will revolt and company would go bankrupt

Same reason Verizon said they had no interest in buying Wind

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

smp99 — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 14:28:27 GMT

Merits??? I do find it questionable to only target a single carrier. Question marks fill the air.... Why is this promo so short, only 2 weeks? All recent promos have gone much longer. What does the CRTC have to say about such a targeted promo. Or maybe PM is low on the radar in the grand scheme of Canada's wireless landscape it is a nonissue

Unless, as many have suggested and I would agree, this is test or precurser to a larger roll-out. It does make sense not to overload the backend system by limitiing the eligible audience. I could see opening or adding other carriers every 2 weeks. If this is the plan, then I would suggest make the plan known so people arn't jumping through hoops trying to get on board.

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

kav2001c — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 14:47:00 GMT

@smp99 Fido also has an inmarket Freedom targeted plan right now as well

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

zhadj030 — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 16:30:01 GMT

@kav2001c wrote:
@smp99 Fido also has an inmarket Freedom targeted plan right now as well

I keep hearing this but I can't seem to find anything.

@kav2001c

Re: Merits of a Targeted Promotion

kav2001c — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 19:12:27 GMT

@zhadj030 same as Public, not listed on website

You can call in though to discuss