October 2, 2006

Survey Says: Bring On Converged Services

By Mike Robuck

When Integra5 sent out a survey to 4,000 of Hargray Communications’ caller ID on TV customers, it had a notion that the customers liked the service, but the survey results also said those same customers were ready to embrace more converged service offerings.

Hargray is a quad-play service provider in South Carolina that always seems to be on the cutting edge, trying out new technologies with its customers. In addition to deploying Intergra5’s caller ID on TV feature, it’s also looking at other Integra5 applications such as customer care messaging.

“If you asked me the biggest surprise, I would say the consumers’ interest in getting customer care messages delivered to them,� said Meredith Flynn-Ripley, Integra5’s COO, of the survey results that were released today. “We always knew that service providers wanted to deliver the messages, but we were surprised the customers were interested in getting customer care calls.�

Out of the 14 percent of the customers who responded to the survey, 55 percent said they would like to get service care messaging - such as program lineup changes and upgrade information - to their TV sets and PCs.

Caller ID on TV a hit with customers

The caller ID on a TV application is free to Hargray customers who subscribe to digital cable or broadband TV tiers and who also subscribe to its regular caller ID service. Customers showed a strong affinity for the application; 91 percent said they either “love� or “like� TV caller ID, while 65 percent said they “love� it, according to the survey results. While customers can turn the application off, 94 percent of them said they leave it active all the time.

The word-of-mouth marketing potential of caller ID on TV was also noted in the survey; 81 percent of the respondents told friends and neighbors, while 58 percent showed it to the same groups.

The survey, which was completed in August, also let customers write about their experiences with the application.

“There were a lot of ‘Battle of the Sexes’ stories of how couples were trying to trick each other,� Flynn-Ripley said. “One young toddler was using TV caller ID to spell out the letters of the alphabet. Another family with another operator keeps a TV in the kitchen with the caller ID service, and they all look at the TV before picking up the phone.�

Integra5 has 11 service operators signed up for the service, with eight deployed and an additional three more expected to sign up over the coming weeks.

Next stage, converged services

The survey also revealed interest in a broad range of “next stage� advanced converged services, such as:

• 60 percent were interested in email and voicemail alerts to both TV sets and PCs.
• 51 percent were interested in converged services that incorporated wireless devices, such as Web content alerts to cell phones.
• 50 percent were interested in services that incorporate personalization like TV and PC picture caller ID, setting caller ID preferences and a personalized network address book.
• 47 percent were interested in interactive services like “click-to-call� and other applications that would allow them to control and manage their calls and user experience, such as automatically diverting calls to voicemail and controlling how and which devices in the home (TV sets and PCs) display the caller ID.
• 42 percent were interested in content alerts, which incorporate RSS and Web-based technology to display local, national, and international news banners on TVs and PCs in real time.

“It confirms that caller ID on TV is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of all of the types of converged communications and content services that are out there and that will be delivered to customers’ different devices and homes,� Flynn-Ripley said. “In many ways, the market today just thinks of converged services as caller ID on TV and fixed mobile convergence, the ability to have cell phone transfer over to my home number and vice versa, but there’s a whole world of applications out there that the appetite is there for, and the opportunity for service providers is clearly there.�

From a service provider perspective, the survey found that interested households with annual income from $25,000 to $100,000 a year were willing to pay $3 a month for TV caller ID, and $2 a month for PC caller ID.

For more on how TV caller ID is provisioned, click here.

- Mike Robuck