As the U.S. wireless market becomes increasingly competitive, service providers have turned to cash incentives to woo customers from rivals, or for signing up for new services like mobile money. This is not unlike sign-up incentives offered by many checking accounts.

Service providers are currently offering to pay early-termination fees worth hundreds of dollars per line; and, even outside of the wireless market, AT&T is offering pre-paid Visa cards to new U-verse customers. Whether this strategy is valuable in the long run is hard to say. Cost to benefit ratio is important here. 

Free value-added services

One way to woo customers is to give them more of the things they want. Witness Deutsche Telekom’s partnerships with Evernote and Spotify. Or T-Mobile, a mobile operator that offers all kinds of freebies. For instance, streaming music, a popular service that can quickly devour a data package, doesn’t count against mobile data plans on T-Mobile. The Un-Carrier also offers free in-air text messaging and free international texting and mobile data, which is relatively unheard of.

The in-store experience

Speaking of T-Mobile, have you ever noticed the way its stores stand out from the crowd at night? The Un-Carrier has invested heavily in their recognizable magenta-themed stores, and at night, they leave the cool lights on.

Julissa Rodriguez, a T-Mobile associate who works at a flagship store in Riverside Mall, (and who was coincidentally wearing magenta lipstick), said, “The store looks like a cool nightclub after we close.” Her counterpart, Alejandro Olivares, said top executives recently visited the store to make sure it was tip top.

According to J.D. Power’s latest survey, however, AT&T delivers the best purchasing experience. This most likely speaks to consistency across its wide geographic footprint.  It’s not enough to have a handful of amazing stores and then a boatload of under-performing stores, or third-party resellers who dilute the brand. A good parallel is Apple. Its Apple Stores offer a consistent experience from store to store, and have generated the company not only billions of dollars, but the desirable wow factor.

Putting it all together

Picking a provider is not as simple as looking at a speed report on RootMetrics, getting a great price on a wireline bundle, or asking your friend down the street for an opinion. The reality is that there are many variables, even in the same neighborhood. Look into the last mile of connectivity, especially if consistency and quality of service matter more than price. If fiber is available, and you can get it all the way to the home, consider yourself lucky. 

With wireless, the network still matters--a lot! Then again, value-add services, such as free international data or streaming music, might be the deciding factor if cost is a concern. If you regularly upgrade your phone, or desire in-store demo or tech assistance, it pays to frequent retail locations that excel in these areas. As CSPs continue to tweak CEM models, more variances are likely to arise; but in the end, the customer, whether home, small business, or enterprise, will benefit.

It stands to reason that some simple best-practices can really help improve the customer experience now, such as delivering what on your customer service promise and resolving any issues the first time. With all the CEM solutions in the marketplace and focus on CEM today, it seems these table stakes are most often overlooked and benefit the service provider as much as the customer. Things like not dropping customer calls, resolving service issues by phone or no more than one truck roll, and not offering speeds that can't be delivered have an enormous impact on the customer experience and on customer churn when it's not done right.