Recently,
John Nash had a talk in Istanbul Game Theory Society Event where he has been
asked if there can be a situation where both parties lose. He stated that this
can happen but quite rarely.
Well, I
encountered two lose-lose conditions in a week where one of them was about a
telco which I am going to mention in this post.
I bought a
data package of 500MB. The package was monthly and it was actually “unlimited”.
However, according to the fair usage amount policy, the speed of the connection
decreases dramatically after 500MB but the package was unlimited until the end
of monthly usage period.
After using the first 500MB, my connection got
really slow and I called the customer contact centre. I told them that I want
to buy an additional 500MB with the same speed and it was quite disappointing to
hear that the customer representative told me that it was not possible. Then I told him that he can
cancel the package (even though I had at least 10 days until the end of a month
of usage) and I’m happy to pay the full monthly package fee one more time so
that I can have a proper connection. The response was again no and the reason
for that was even though they cancel the package it keeps valid until its end of usage period.
I
realised that there was no way to speed up my connection but wait until the
package expires! This was a condition where the operator lost easy and significant
revenue from a “willing to pay” customer and where the customer was upset
because he needs to use a very slow connection for around 10 days without being
left with an option.
Flexible add-ons are
key features of a telco product and lack of it can cause irritating
conditions for customers and loss of potential revenue for the telco. Of course,
telcos need to have flexible infrastructure to handle many add-on possibilities
however doesn’t it worth investing when you have chances to double – triple sell
a product where you planned to sell only once in a period?
