SPEEDZEE
The best business idea I’ve ever had.
This one has nothing to do with the environment. Nor does it help the common man.
Nonetheless, the other day, I came up with an idea that, strictly from a business perspective, might be the best one yet.
Name: Speedzee.org
Slogan: Speak with a human immediately. No Quete stuff.
Value Proposition: Speedzee offers consumers the option to pay a small fee to bypass telephone customer service lines.
What is Speedzee: When someone calls a company hoping to talk with customer service and are then put on hold, they will be offered the opportunity to pay a small fee to cut the line.
The script: We are experiencing higher than normal call volume. To speak with a customer service representative immediately please enter your speedzee.com password now.
At which point, a customer would enter their password and the next available customer service representative would pick up their call.
“Thanks for calling time warner cable, this is a Speedzee immediate call, how can I help you?”
The money: The price to cut the line will be fixed, so no matter what company the customer is calling, they know how much they will be charged to use Speedzee. Assuming the Speedzee fee is $1, when a customer enters their password they will be automatically charged. Of the $1 charged a certain percentage will go to Speedzee and another percentage would go to the company. Finally, to get over the moral qualms customers, companies, and I have with a pay to cut the line business model, another percentage would go to charity. So, assuming the charge is $1. When a customer enters his password, $0.50 will go to the host company, $0.25 will go to Speedzee, and another $0.25 will go to charity.
Thought: This was Speedzee can probably claimn that: “50% of Speedzee revenue goes to charity”. That would be pretty dope.
The host company: From the perspective of the host company, this should be a no brainer. Assuming the technology and workflow are easy to implement, this offers companies a brand new, dependable revenue stream. Furthermore, companies can now offer white glove service to customers that demand it. It also gives them the ability to fragment public sentiment, especially if they previously were branded as having dependably poor customer service.
“Will this piss off the other customers that don’t use Speedzee?”whispers the Customer Service Manager.
Perhaps. But not likely. First, if customers are using Speedzee, it probably means that they are already pissed off at the company and can’t stand waiting anymore. This is an opportunity for improvement. Think of the postal service. It used to be that you only had one option to mail your package. Then they created a new service where you could pay more to overnight ship a package. With Speedzee you are giving customers the opportunity to pay for an upgraded service.
Second, customers are very familiar with a pay to cut the line model. Think about Disney Land or Six Flags where people with the speed passes can saunter onto whatever ride they want bypassing the serpentine line filled with goth teenagers, awkwardly making out with braces. This model works quite well for amusement parks. Furthermore, in this case the customers can even visualize the fact they are getting cut. Third, Speedzee will be priced at a point that ensures some, but far from all customers will use service. Fourth, if the customer goes to Speedzee.org, they will be impressed with its bold social mission.
Now that we have nipped that question in the butt, let’s see if the host company has any incentives to use and abuse the system. Examples of that could be:
1.) Purposely exaggerate the wait time to encourage people to use Speedzee.
2.) Take the money but do not offer the immediate customer service that the brand gaurentees.
These are the only areas of abuse that come to my mind right now. How can Speedzee safeguard them from happening.
1.) In terms of the first concern “over-use of Speedzee,” this is a threat to the Speedzee model, because it could erode the brand over time. There are a couple mechanisms that Speedzee could use to keep this from happening.
a. Price the service at a low enough point so that the cost of sullying their own brand with the mirage of long call center wait lines is far worse than the money that could be made by the company from abusing the Speedzee system.
b. Maintain the right to see basic call center data, such as number of customers calling the company and the numbers using Speedzee. This will allow Speedzee to easily police any abuses. If the percentage of users is unreasonably high, this will set off an alarm for Speedzee users.
2.) In terms of the second concern above, I see this as a very real risk. How can Speedzee be sure that once people pay the fee they will indeed skip the line. A couple ideas:
a. The Speedzee No Quete Stuff 30 second guarantee- you speak in 30 seconds or Speedzee refunds in full—this would be a great mechanism to track bad service too based off of complaints.
b. Not in line with business incentives. If the company does not honor speedzee, then less people will use it. If less people use it, the business will lose money as well.
Marketing: One of the reasons I love this idea is because the product will market itself. What better time to learn about the new service then at the exact moment you would use it. If you’re sitting in line waiting to speak to a customer representative and they ask you to enter your Speedzee.org password to skip the line, wouldn’t you maybe go to speedzee.org to see what that is?
No? Okay, well certainly you would if over the course of a month you waited on three different companies’ customer service lines and each one of them asked for your Speedzee password.
The much harder sell will be getting companies to use Speedzee when the product is brand new.
Barriers to Entry: Very large barriers to entry because no host company can compete. It needs to be an independent third party whose password you can use at multiple companies sites. You make one account and, if you want, you never wait for customer service again.
The only other concern would be the same service offered from a new competing company. At which case, if Speedzee hit a critical mass of customers and businesses, it would be very hard for that company to offer a value proposition to customers to leave Speedzee and go to another company. Also, the companies would not want to have two different providers.
Potential Problems to the model: 1- Customer service wait times aren’t as long as I envision them, and perhaps they could go down with more online help.
-could be a problem, but one would think that companies would reduce their call center staff, and then, at times of high traffic, long waits would still arrive. Still though, a concern.
2- Clients with notoriously long lines will be unable to use such a service: aka: government and utility clients. Legally are they allowed to do this?
3- Technology is expensive to implement. I don’t know a goddamn thing about call center technology. If this is complicated and expensive to implement, it could be hard to get companies to sign on.
4- Fragmented call center work flow. If companies outsource to third-party call center services, could be harder to implement.
