Leveraging Your Early Adopters

Last week, my brand new car suffered a catastrophic transmission failure that required a flat bed to come and pick it up from the side of the road. It also left a mess on the road near my house that will remind me of the failure for many months to come. This car is no low-end econobox either; it’s an expensive new model from a manufacturer globally renowned for innovation, performance and build quality. As a consumer, seeing such a failure in a car with 600 miles on it makes me consider what my options are, no matter how extreme they may be. I either stick it out, wait for the fix and try again, or raise bloody hell at the dealer and get rid of it.

Thankfully for the manufacturer, I am one of those consumers willing to test new products and accept minor issues when they arise. My sentiments however, may not echo those of consumer and enterprise customers regarding the launch of new services. Most tend to be extremely fickle when it comes to trying new services, and one or two early failures can cause a significant amount of churn. However, it’s important to remember that early technology adopters tend to be more resilient, are happy to test out new services and become a core test bed for trying new service launches. Operators, in their quest to build ARPU should tap into this willing resource as a beta test group before they launch a new service to their entire customer base. With the right business intelligence tools, these operators can segment their customers based on characteristics that highlight their willingness to be a test bed for a new service.

These test bed customers could be extremely valuable in testing new content services, new payment mechanisms, service/content bundles and a variety of other potential offerings. The data gathered based on the test audience can be used to refine service offerings, insure technology assets in place are functioning as expected, and get hands on honest advice on what needs to be improved or changed. More importantly than that, the customer that acts as part of the testing program, if treated well, will likely feel an even greater sense of loyalty to the provider, and will be even easier to retain in the long term. And since they are often called upon for advice in their social circles, they can help boost early adoption. Software, video game, and web companies have recognized this for a few years, and have active early adopter programs. Shouldn’t service providers?

As for me, I consider myself an early technology adopter, willing to accept the odd problem here and there. As such, I will see how the next 600 miles progress…let’s hope for better luck this time!