[3GScottishUser]

So what has happened to the aggressive customer acquisition strategy at 3 UK?

Has Head Office in Hong Kong told the UK team to go and show how they can make some income from their current user base before they agree to massive new investment?

Its astounding loooking around at how little 3 UK have to offer in terms of handsets right in the middle of the busiest trading quarter of the year. Looking at e2save they have just 3 current models available (Nokia N70, SonyEricsson K608i and LG U8360), the rest are older discontinued models, colour variations or reconditioned stuff. A disaster when pitched against a range of over 30 different handsets by 02 and Vodafone and over 20 from Orange and T-Mobile. The deals on offer are no longer unique either as you can get an N70 from 02 with 11 months 1/2 price line rental on a £35/month contract. The majors seem to have just as good a selection of 3G handsets now and have all the popular GSM offerings as well!

Things should impove with the arrival of the Nokia 6280, the Motorola V3x and the LG U880 but its getting very tight for those to make any impact and of the 3 of those 2 will be available on other networks.

No sign of much in the way of pre-pay activity either aside some clearence of reconditioned obsolete stocks.

There appears to be a big switch of emphisis to content and downloads. Prices have been slashed to existing users to encourage take-up of non-voice content and new products like 'double downloads' should help as they solve the problem of failed 3 network downloads to some extent. It is noteworthy that almost all of 3's current advertising is aimed at non-voice products. Interesting to also note the 1st 3 UK price increase in November 2005 and a clearout of dealers who have not delivered the 'right' customers.

A quick look at your local link, CPW or Phones4U is enlightning. The majors all have lots to interest customers. Loads of new handsets like SE Walkmans, Motorolla iTunes ROKR, Samsung's fabulous D600, clour variotions of the popular moto V3, new 3G handsets and PDA's and a wealth of cheaper pre-pay models with prices from just £15! Meanwhile back at the 3 display there are lots of leaflets and a pretty dated looking LCD display but the only handsets to view are the old fashioned LG, a couple of Nokia Smatphones and the candybar SE 608i..... they look pretty lonley sitting there beside the competition.

What has happened? Has the emphisis been shifted to Italy ahead of the IPO? Have HWL just go fed up throwing cash at 3 UK? Or are we about to witness another heavy 'giveaway' like lat year in the dying days of 2005?

[gorilla]

Well I voted "NO Way, they will be back with great phones and offers soon ".
The reason being that in Belfast they (or someone) has just opened up a 'three store' not a three point but a dedicated store serving three. I hope for the sake of competition that three do not wilt. After being sceptical at the start of my contract I am now quietly pleased I joined three.

[joffa81]

i hope not as well as i have been with 3 for 2 years after moving from orange and apart from my experience with a duff lgu8110 everything has been fine.i must say that cs are pretty bad all i did was buy a cheap nec 338 handset for £69.99 sold the three pay sim for £30 and got me a fone that had no problems for £30 to replace me lg after my 12 months were up got a v975 and everything been exellent.
new handsets are on the way we just all need to be patient

[Malboro Man]

It might not just be 3 - Vodafone still isn't being sold by Dial-a-phone and all operators seem set on sticking with their own channels.

Maybe all those years of heavy subsidies for low-value prepay customers are biting them back where it hurts - in their pockets!

[Hands0n]

"No Way"

With 3 opening up their own stores like Vodafone and O2 they must have a strategy that goes beyond the current range of handsets. It really is beyond me why they persist in keeping unavailable handsets on their website, it does them no favours.

But they have a clutch of very current up and coming handsets due out in November. But it really is up to the likes of Nokia to make the supply available, it is not that 3 are witholding the stocks for any particular reason.

3's biggest selling point is still their voice and text tariffs which are still very keen in comparison to the opposition.

Content is okay, just. I think that MobiTV will prove to be a disaster, and good for 3 in taking the decision not to brand it like Orange did. The less association with that unwatchable abortion for 3GTV the better for 3.

They need to restore their reputation to gain back the customers they lost during 2004/5 and get their churn rate down from the heady 60% it was earlier this year. To do this they need an Effective Customer Service operation and that is their Achilles heel. If they don't get this right it will kill them stone dead.

That said, if there are sufficient high street 3 stores then maybe the need for a CS will go away if they will handle Customer problems in store.

[3GScottishUser]

Unless some very significant return to pre-pay and massive improvement is apparent with regards contracts I think HWL will exit before the middle of 2006.

Th contract business has been a bit stop/go with many initial customers left very dissatisfied. The big 2004 push with cheap Nokia 7600's and LG's looks to have been a bit of a folly bringing them only short term gain. Lately the nokia 66XX sries has proven popular and much beeter accepted but the high numbers of returns (proven by the significant advertising of 'refurbished' handsets) does not bode well. The pre-pay product has all but died off now with none of the majors supporting it in terms of new handset sales.

A further clue might be the fact thet 3 UK has not made any serious attempt at selling to business customers. They have a section of their website that offers duplicate tariffs that are on the consumer section but that can't be taken seriously.

Yes there will be some new handsets but I dont expect to see them being offered at the sort of deals we have previously seen. Even the expected ZTE's (for Threepay) will be far more mainstream in terms of pricing and in both cases the competition appears to have left 3 UK somewhere between a rock and a hard place.

Customer service issues still abound and the fact that there seems to have been little change in terms of the delivery of these vital services provides another clue about the future. If a company was serious about staying for the longer term they would have surely have made some radical changes in this area to address the issues.

Is it the end of the beginning for 3 UK or the beginning of the end of them? My gut feeling and opinion is that it will be the latter, sadly.

[jayd]

People will always go for 3's excellent value tarrifs. Maybe they will no longer continue to be as aggressive as they used to be , but they no longer need to. 3 have now established themselves as a major player in the mobile phone market and are a recognised brand and this will continue to grow. For every horror story 3 have there are 100 success stories and the vast majority of people are now happy with the service ( except Mumbai of course ). I actually left 3 myself 2 weeks back and joined Vodafone but found the 3g service actually inferior to 3's and I'm in Birmingham a major city. This shows what progress 3 have made. I'm actually going back and I think many others will too. So in short, no I don't think this is the begining of the end for 3 but rather as you put it the end of the begining and now we will see them go totally mainstream, still offering good value of course.

[Ben]

I think the focus on building out stores is an important factor, and a new focus for the companies energies moving forward. Whether Three's ownership remains the same is, I believe, questionable, but whoever ends up running the show at the end of the day it shouldn't really affect the customer in the short term.

The tariffs are still pretty mind-boggling on the value front. It's kinda logical that things have eased off a little as work is done on other areas of the business to prepare it for IPO. Another reason though is undoubtedly that the competition has stepped up in terms of quality. Orange have a wider range of TV channels and some unique services, while Vodafone have a very thorough and high-quality offering with the recent Sky TV deal really turning up the heat. Only a certain amount of people will flock to Three on price alone, and I think the majority of those have already jumped.