Dumping XT brand may be best, prof says

It could be in Telecom's long-term interests to dump the XT mobile network brand and revert to Telecom, University of Otago Professor of Entrepreneurship Brendan Gray said yesterday.

"XT will have problems resurrecting itself because it hasn't got a long track record to start with.

"If there was a long track record - like the Telecom brand - generally, people have had a positive experience or view about it."

A good track record meant consumers and stakeholders, like shareholders and the Government, were more likely to forgive the company for such problems as the four recent XT network outages, he said.

"With a good track record, people say 'it's a pity that happened; it's out of character' and as long as they correct it quickly, customers are willing to forgive.

"The real problem XT has is it doesn't have a track record.

"It was launched with a hiss and a roar and obviously hasn't been able to live up to initial promises."

Prof Gray said it would not be impossible to salvage the brand, but it would be difficult.

It had made sense when Telecom used the new technology to introduce a new brand.

Asked if there was a parallel between XT and Microsoft's Vista, which was seen by many computer users as user unfriendly, he said Microsoft found it easier to drop Vista as a brand and go back to the more recognisable Windows 7.

That could be the case for Telecom - dump XT and go back to Telecom.

Successful brands could be long-lived and very successful, but they needed to have several key components, he said.

First, they needed high quality products and services and after-sales care.

Good brands needed outstanding people working for them and that helped the ongoing quality of the brand.

The brands also needed a strong reputation for being innovative and having consistent corporate social responsibility - being ethical to its consumers and staff.

If a company was missing any of those components, it was much more difficult to salvage a brand after incidents like the XT outages, Prof Gray said.

Otago Chamber of Commerce chief executive John Christie agreed the XT brand had been damaged, but a chamber survey under way shows that although nearly 80% of respondents had been affected by the outages, numbers were reasonably evenly split between staying with Telecom and moving to another mobile provider.

Mr Christie regarded the survey, which closes at noon tomorrow, as a litmus test of the community.

Of those surveyed, 45.3% said they would stay with Telecom's XT network and 46% said they would like to change.

Nearly 9% said they would add another provider as a back-up service.

Comments from respondents ranged from understanding and tolerant through to angry and vitriolic.

The four XT outages have mainly affected 220,000 Telecom customers who live south of Taupo.

All outages are related to the Christchurch radio network centre but have been caused by different problems.

Vodafone corporate communications head Paul Brislen said that while he could not provide new customer numbers, as they were released quarterly, he could confirm there had been a "huge increase" in the number of customers visiting stores and taking up either prepay SIM cards for an instant fix, or talking about longer-term solutions.

"This is particularly from business customers.

"As you'll know, the South Island is a Telecom heartland for mobile, particularly in Dunedin and Christchurch, where most businesses use CDMA [the old Telecom network].

"Given Telecom is closing that network down and migrating customers to XT, we're suddenly inundated with customers wanting to know about our coverage, pricing and handsets and devices."

Sales staff were working long days to take advantage of the sudden interest, Mr Brislen said from Auckland.

- dene.mackenzie@odt.co.nz.