The Sharp End: 3 poaching and Voda 08 charges

3 promises no poaching...

Many dealers have complained vigorously in the past about how 3’s direct sales team actively engage in what we dealers describe as poaching.

3 would actively contact our customers early, offering to upgrade them direct with silly offers before we were allowed to upgrade them ourselves.

However, our moans have largely fallen on deaf ears.

Recently, I went on a 3 Business Roadshow where 3 highlighted its business tariffs and offerings, as it is now trying to make a serious move into the business arena. Again.

One of the issues I brought up at the presentation was dealers are unwilling, in the most part, to connect business customers to 3 for fear they would be poached by the network in the same way it poaches our consumer customers.

3 promised this would not happen to business customers. But, of course, we’ve heard it all before. 3 told its Q Club of ‘elite’ dealers the same thing.

But 3 has now responded and introduced, in writing no less, new rules of engagement.

The document stipulates 3 will not knowingly pursue a business customer that has been introduced to it by the dealer channel, effectively ring fencing the customer.

There are obviously some exceptions, but these are totally understandable and acceptable.

The main one is 3 states it will not pursue a business customer for upgrade unless the said business customer has not already been upgraded at the end of their initial contract term.

So, basically, as long as a dealer contacts its customers promptly at the end of their contract, 3 will not jump in.

There are a few other little caveats, but these are self explanatory and mainly relate to churn levels and PAC code requests.

This is very good news from 3, even if it’s very long overdue. It has some very attractive business tariff offerings at the moment, with very attractive commission rates.

The network is better than it used to be and the handsets have moved on leaps and bounds.

By introducing these written rules, 3 has overcome a large hurdle in its goal of attracting more business connections from the independent dealer channel.

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