Feb 03, 2004 -- Family and network plans are booming
The latest wrinkle in the cell phone wars could be a great asset to you. Its known as sticky services, and its been very successful in some markets. The idea is to create a web of reasons to stay with a particular company. The cell phone industry has a terrible problem with turnover. Companies lose about three percent of their customers every month, which is a massive loss. So, theyve started promoting family and network plans. The original family-to-family plans, which allowed you to talk to family members only, were not that successful. So, now companies have come up with network plans, whereby you can talk to anyone on the same network for nothing. The deal is that you can talk to someone on your same plan and it doesnt count against your minutes. Youre essentially off the clock. It creates an incentive for discipline in a family or corporation to use one plan. All of the employees are on the same plan, so it costs less. That is the carrot. But the stick is that companies will require you to sign a one- or two-year contract. You just simply decide whether its worth it to you. Clark carries two cell phones one for local calls and one for long distance. Two companies, in particular, specialize in the local calling plans, and Clark loves their business models. The companies are Cricket Communications and MetroPCS, and both offer unlimited calling. The unlimited talking model is slowly growing with other companies, and soon the block-of-minutes plans will be a thing of the past. They all range between $40 and $45, and that is the sweet spot that people are willing to pay.