It can happen to the best of ISPs: an “oops, our bad” moment. One of PerfTech’s regional ISP customers discovered that they mistakenly had not been collecting a rental fee for a CPE device, and now they needed to begin charging. It can be tricky—asking customers to begin paying for something that so far has been “free.” The ISP decided quickly to send an in-browser message to announce the omission, to explain that the rental fee would now appear on customer bills going forward, and to reassure them there would be no retroactive charges. The message also included the amount of the rental fee, which was small, to preclude calls asking for that piece of information.
The in-browser message was sent only to those subscribers affected, and in batches across overlapping time windows lasting in sum for about six weeks. Response options included phoning the ISP support number displayed, or selecting one of two active buttons, with these results:
“OK, THANKS” response rate: 55.8%
“CHAT NOW” response rate: 15.0%
Total online response rate: 70.8%
Note that while most consider a response rate over 70% to be highly successful, the definitive response rate would also add in those customers who phoned the ISP support center directly, a statistic not known to the in-browser platform, and would result in an even greater response.