I finally did it. After considering switching from Comcast Triple Play (Phone, TV, Internet) to Verizon FiOS Triple Play, I spent a good portion of my Friday, including the evening, making the switch.
The reason it took me so long to switch, Verizon FiOS, has been available in my neighborhood for a couple years, was I knew it would be painful, and I was right.
Eliminate The Pain Or Create An Opportunity
I Had No Pain: Everything was working with Comcast
As all business owners know, there are two reasons customers seek out your offer. Either they are in pain or they are seeking an opportunity. Any time a customer switches either due to a customer support issue or some misalignment in perceived value of an offer, they are switching to eliminate a pain.
It is ironic that my wife a few years back had a previous bad experience with Verizon local phone service which is why we originally moved to the Comcast Triple Play service. We switched to avoid the pain of Verizon local phone service support and broken commitments.
On the other hand, Verizon FiOS is the classic opportunity driven offer. Almost all the time customers switch from a legacy offer like Comcast for the opportunity to do something fundamentally different and exciting.
I switched from Comcast not to remove a pain but for the opportunity of getting FiOS, basically a next generation communications service (multi-room DVR is a great example)
Get The Switching Cost As Close To Zero As You Can
It Was Expensive To Switch: I speculated it would take a good portion of one day for me to be home
Unfortunately, I was right. Pat, an extremely competent technician from Verizon FiOS, arrived at around 10am and left around 5pm. In addition, a colleague of Pat’s was there for about half the time as well. During the course of the day, I was left without internet service for portions of the day. Also, I had plenty of small and large batches of time working through issues with them. Then the unexpected, which of course I expected hit, just after Pat had left. Verizon includes their own wireless router so I no longer used mine and so my two wireless printers (1 laser Black and White, 1 multi-purpose mainly for color) were no longer on the network. This took another few hours of my time as well as some anguish as I worked through it. In addition, the next day, Saturday, I had to spend a couple of hours returning the equipment to Comcast.
Verizon FiOS, as best they could, minimized the cost on my end. Even though they needed two trucks and had at least a day and half of labor costs (conservatively if $100/hour @10 hours, that would be $1000), their fee for the install was $0.
Why would Verizon FiOS waive a thousand dollars of labor? I wanted Verizon FiOS, I did not want all the sh*t I would have to go through to get it and they knew it. Verizon FiOS wanted another recurring client and realized that any upfront costs they would get from me would pale in comparison to the monthly revenue.
Verizon FiOS minimized costs on things I did not want, even though it cost them hard dollars, in order to get what they did want, another recurring revenue customer to grow their long term valuation. Nicely done!
