The new salesmen of Uninor Telecom (India): milkmen and autowallahs

Restaurants and washrooms may have provided the ambience for some brilliant ideas, but for telecom operator Uninor, the flicker of inspiration came when a top executive was on his way home in an autorickshaw. Uninor Maharashtra circle head Ritesh Singh's idea — branded auto-rickshaws, milkmen and newspaper vendors selling SIM cards and recharge vouchers at customers' doorsteps — was immediately lapped up by the company, the Indian arm of Norwegian telecom operator Telenor.

To boost sales, Videocon Mobile Services, another operator, was sending retailers and distributors on holiday to exotic locations and giving away LED TVs before they even began selling SIM cards or recharge vouchers.

Uninor and Videocon, which won back licences in spectrum auctions the previous year, were feeling the need to adapt and innovate in the overcrowded domestic telecom market, which, according to research firm Gartner, would touch Rs 1.2 lakh crore in revenue terms in 2013. These companies, along with Sistema Shyam's MTS, had restarted operations after the Supreme Court cancelled the mobile permits of several telecom operators in the 2G spectrum allocation case. MTS secured licences the previous month.

With a modest investment, Uninor trained 30 auto-drivers to comply with regulations for enrolling new customers and retaining existing ones. The sales drive was extended to include milkmen and newspaper vendors in Hadapsar and Vishrantwadi localities in Pune. As part of the strategy, these new sales agents sourced the SIM cards and recharge vouchers from a local distributor who also processed and verified new customer forms.

This go-to-customer strategy, an industry first, was to be replicated across the state and eventually in all the circles where Uninor operated — UP East, UP West, Bihar and Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa.

"The response has been phenomenal. By being near the customers, our mobile retailers are two to three times efficient compared with regular retail channels, which translates to more business," said Uninor's chief marketing officer, Rajeev Sethi. Uninor's strategy was also helping boost incomes for these new agents. According to Sethi, the monthly income of the auto driver, for instance, went up by Rs 2,500 with about 50–60 transactions a month. The driver ended up getting the same commission per transaction as a shop retailer selling Uninor's products, he added.

The telecom company planned to launch 1,000 auto recharge vehicles in five or six cities across Maharashtra over the next six months.

Videocon Mobile Services, on the other hand, was handing over the proverbial carrot instead of just dangling it — in Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, the circles where the operator had permits, retailers and distributors would be awarded upfront with LED televisions and trips to exotic locales. The company set aside Rs 10 crore for this.

There was a catch, though: the partner had to commit to sell a certain number of SIM cards and recharges in these markets. "These are the people that we will deal with for the next 20 years, we have to establish trust," said Arvind Bali, chief executive of Videocon Mobile Services. The mobile services division of the Videocon Group was also tying up with local FMCG companies to expand its customer base.

Videocon and Uninor's strategies were a sharp contrast to those of incumbent operators who had cut dealer commissions and reduced spends on acquiring new customers. Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Tata Teleservices and Aircel had withdrawn freebies and slashed talk-time on pre-paid discount vouchers in order to increase sales and margins.

Source: Economic Times