While many large cellular carriers are slowly progressing toward offering bundled telecommunications services, a small Mississippi cellular company began its bundled offering last week.
Cellular South customers now have the option to purchase cellular, residential and long-distance service from the company and receive one bill for all of them.
“When deregulation passed, we were basically sitting there waiting on it,” said Carroll Blackledge, Cellular South’s director of marketing and sales. “We immediately began dedicating resources to putting the package together.”
The carrier, which controls nine rural service areas in Mississippi, was able to quickly negotiate reselling agreements with long-distance providers and with BellSouth Corp., the residential telephone carrier in the area. The company also was able to efficiently convert its internal billing system to one that could handle condensing all three services onto one bill.
“It was a challenge, but not an overwhelming one. One of the major advantages we have is our size,” said Blackledge. “Decisions can be made more rapidly.”
Marketed under the name Telepak, the package of services initially was rolled out in the Golden Triangle area of Mississippi in late March. This includes the cities of Columbus, Westpoint and Starkville.
The company expanded the offering to all of its markets last week.
Cellular South is charging 15 cents per minute for local cellular airtime, cellular long-distance service and residential long-distance service. Customers are required to purchase cellular service for $20 per month to receive the other services, and a second phone can be purchased for $5 per month. Customers also have the option to switch back in 90 days.
“The response has been great. In our first week of our first test market, we signed up over 100 customers,” said Blackledge.
The company has launched an extensive marketing campaign complete with television spots and color print ads. Blackledge said Cellular South’s main goal is to convince consumers that purchasing telecommunications services from just one company is natural.
“Looking at a marketing perspective, we probably were overly concerned about why [customers] would want to purchase residential service from a cellular company,” said Blackledge. “We conducted focus groups, and the message customers sent us was, `provide (customer) service the same as residential’ … Reputation is everything. When you’re providing home telephone service, you better be sure you can provide it at the level the customer has been receiving it.”
The company also has trained its customer service staff to educate customers about how their bills will look. “We have trained [our staff] to deal with the customer by telling them that instead of getting three or four bills for $30 or $40, they will be replaced by one bill that’s $150. That can alleviate most of the sticker shock syndrome.”
Cellular South said it is evaluating other services to include in the Telepak. Internet access already is offered in some areas, but the company’s strategy is to let the customers help determine what services to offer.
