When you’re being attacked on price and product, the usual response is to respond in kind; the pressure to maintain sales can be enormous. Instead of responding only on product/price, Telecom returned to a core competency (support) and adopted a service, not sell, strategy to reinforce and differentiate its technology leadership position within the market.

Tech in a Sec (TIAS) is an agnostic and proactive content programme designed to help Kiwis get the most from their technology. The programme is a series of how-to videos and other content covering a wide range of tech topics, from help using mobile data, apps and WiFi to boosting battery life and using the cloud. Each video focuses on one topic, breaking down what can be confusing information and technical jargon into super helpful bite-sized explanations. Did you know a bowl could boost your mobile’s speaker? You do now, thanks to TIAS!

The telecommunications industry is highly competitive with aggressive price and products offerings. With these areas increasingly becoming a hygiene factor for competition, Telecom embraced a differentiation strategy, endeavouring to position itself as the people’s champion – to make it really easy (and free!) for all of us to get the most from our technology. TIAS was the answer; a one-stop-shop for helpful videos and content making it super simple for anyone (Telecom customer or not) to master modern-day technology.

The TIAS CRM approach was created to amplify and extend the rich TIAS content via a push strategy. It was a ‘service not sales’ approach, but TIAS was still expected to drive key business objectives. For this to work effectively, people had to engage with the rich content that was housed at techinasec.co.nz. A comprehensive and responsive eDM programme delivers relevant TIAS content straight to people’s inboxes.

But did it work? In the six months since launch, over 166,000 unique Kiwis have been reached with over 869,000 emails via the TIAS email push strategy, which has achieved best practice engagement, boosted ARPU and greatly reduced churn and cost per serve.
The TIAS programme has been an amazing success, achieving or exceeding all of its objectives.