Mr. Donovan White: Ideas to improve your Marketing as it is, like, so lame!

I received a call from one of your telemarketing people at 9:45am on March 29^th 2010 originating from a number 1(876)619-5000. The individual (male) in the call attempted to offer me an exchange, in which I would receive a new Digicel SIM card in lieu of another (ostensibly from the competition, namely LIME and CLARO). From the get-go, obviously this is a VERY bitter letter of complaint!

What has me upset is the fact that on listening to this individual’s offer lacked substance, as he was actually attempting to offer me a prepaid SIM for a postpaid SIM card, even after advising him of the type of SIM card that I had and the fact that I already had a Digicel SIM card, which I use only in my Digicel EDGE USB Stick Modem (DC87-0) for basic internet access, with which I am quite satisfied and have no reason to trade in for a replacement SIM .

What was even more puzzling is that his offer of a SIM card did not come with any mention of a new cell phone, which means that he was assuming that my phone must be one of those unlocked phones or dual-SIM phones that can accept any SIM from any mobile network, which I assure you it is not, as it is just a simple Nokia 1208 mobile phone from LIME, the number for which I have had since 1998, when I was then a student of the University of the Technology and I purchased my then first phone, which was a C&W.

I asked the young man if he knew anything about Digicel plans to go MNP (Mobile Number Portability) as stated in the article “Mobile firms divided on Mobile Number Portability” published Friday, 15 May 2009 by the Jamaica Gleaner, (http://jamaica-gleaner.com) and then the OUR’s Decision to push the agenda as stated in the article “OUR signals policy shift on portability - says Jamaica running out of phone numbers”, published Friday November 20, 2009 by Mark Titus, Business Reporter, The Jamaica Gleaner (http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com).

Also, I asked about Digicel’s plans to launch WiMaX 4G Mobile (IEEE 802.16d) as stated in the article “Digicel tooffer mini laptops with 4G service next year”, published Friday September 4^th 2009 by Lavern Clarke, The Jamaica Gleaner (http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com). Or even about DigiTV, also mentioned in recent publications as stated in the article “Digicel signs ZTE as 4G Mobile WiMaX Internet Partner”, published Sunday, September 27, 2009, The Jamaica Observer (http://www.jamaicaobserver.com) and on all counts he was clueless, as my questions were meant to help him to make his offer sound much better.

Alas, he failed miserably, hung up despite my challenged questions and stated that he intends to return and call me again (I suspect with a better offer?) in light of my fervent and egregious attachment to my mobile phone and I am thus left to ponder if while talking to me his entire conversation was scripted as his inability to answer any questions pertaining to your company product future offerings left me baffled as to what kind of circus your company is running in the guise of a mobile company.

Curiously enough, on contacting other Seventh day Adventist friends who have a mobile phone from Digicel, they have told me that they were being contacted by LIME telemarketers and were themselves annoyed by this unwanted intrusion into their lives as the already had phones and were satisfied with their previous purchase.

It is thus apparent that the Telecoms Providers have nothing doing with their lives and have decided to torment us on our mobile phones, despite us poor little customers long accepting the fact that our customer information is on a database which we have no control over as stated in the article “Privacy Breached - FLOW clients railing against Directory Listings”, published January 31^st 2010, the Sunday Gleaner by Mark Titus, Business Reporter, page C1.

It is nice to interact ever now and again with members of the Telecom Providers network, but when one is called for nothing from ones mealtime only to answer a telemarketer (I am now having a Prozac moment!) who apparently is unable to even sell his soul even if the Devil were to help him is both annoying and irritating and make the competition look nice by comparison.

But the apparent lack of Marketing savvy and prowess is now becoming glaringly evident from the fact that both Digicel and its nearest competitor CLARO are currently recycling the same advertising from 2009, merely changing its aesthetic appearance and palming it off as new. It would appear that your people are unable to come up with new ideas, much less a new Marketing campaigns reflective of your eventual launch of Wimax 4G Mobile (IEEE 802.16d) and DigiTV.

To wit, I have dug up some of almost 500 proposals I have written over the years, gave them a bit of “spit and shine” polish to make them more modern and included them in this letter, proposals which reflect what customers actually want as opposed to what you Telecoms Providers insist on shoving on people without first doing research, preferably from the University of the West Indies as students from the University of Technology are brain-dead over sexed youth who revel in violence (something which I abhor!) and depend too heavily on logic when one only needs to search databases to find the solutions as most of these problems that have already been solved a thousand times over.

This letter is not thus in support of LIME, Digicel or CLARO. This is a complaint letter to your management with regards to my right to not be disturbed by your telemarketing people with offers of another mobile SIM card, unless you desire to give me a postpaid SIM INCLUSIVE of a mobile phone of an equivalent value to the one that I currently have.

Preferably locked both in terms of Phone Instruments (mobile, fixed line mobile, landline or wired /wireless modems) IMEI and SIM Cards (mobile, fixed line mobile, landline or wired /wireless modems) IMSI so that if persons take the phone, chuck away the SIM card and replaced it with another Digicel SIM card, it just will not work, even if the phone was forcefully unlocked and made open to work on any network.

In short, do your research, preferably with assistance from University of the West Indies Engineering students (indeed, we do have an Engineering Department in Jamaica at the Mona Campus!) before you have any more of your telemarketers call me again.

Cheaper yet, just request that all members of staff of your company be forced to write one (1) proposal for a new product or service each week, as I suspect many of your employees are sitting on ideas but have no incentive to give them to aid their company in getting increased profitability, a typical Jamaican malady, I suspect.

Much better than lame “cold calling” especially in this modern age of social networks, surveys and promotional offers based on Behavioral Targeted Marketing as stated in the article “Study: Like it or not, behavioral ad targeting works”, published March 24, 2010 9:01 AM PDT by Caroline McCarthy, CNET News – The Social