Damn. Telecom is closing down Caller Tunes.

Forums › Spark New Zealand › Damn. Telecom is closing down Caller Tunes.

old3eyes

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Topic # 90025 13-Sep-2011 16:26

Just got an SMS saying it was closing November 06.2011. Pity it was quite nice to hear the dog bark when I called my mother-in-laws fone..

Guess lack of take up..

Regards,

Old3eyes

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Reply # 520553 13-Sep-2011 16:56

I heard internal tales of massive revenues in the first several months of operation. Perhaps now the novelty has worn off, and people are not adding/changing tunes anywhere near as much?

Assuming Telecom pays licencing for ongoing use, therefore a decline in use to unprofitable levels = pull the pin.

Great for personal use. Always got a bad impression of people who had them on business mobiles, especially some of the sillier ones.

Clever service though, and if the revenue stories were true, made Telecom a *lot* of money in the first few years.

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mxpress

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Reply # 520568 13-Sep-2011 17:33

Damned shame. I always though it was good and I'll miss mine (won't miss my son's horrible one though). May be Telecom should have spent some of their advertising budget on promoting the service on a regular basis rather than on "pink things" with formal All Blacks riding around in them. People need to be reminded about services like this or they won't know about them to use them. Another good Telecom idea gone west by the look of it.

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akia

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Reply # 520770 14-Sep-2011 08:49

Hey guys,

Following a review, yes we are retiring the CallerTunes service. The uptake from our customers has dropped signigicantly and it has become increaingly expensive to deliver this optional service to customers.

Trust me when I say the decision to retire this service certainly wasn't an easy one to make. It was one that was carefully considered.

We also realise that there were two text messages sent to some customers about the closure of CallerTunes. We apologise for this.

Any queries or issues let me know.

Cheers,
Amber

mxpress

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Reply # 520798 14-Sep-2011 09:43

Hi Amber

Thank you for your reply. I am wondering if telecom had considered promoting the service? Surely that would have given it a surge of popularity. Also CDMA phones going over to XT automatically had the service discoonected without the users being made aware of that. It was months before i realised that caller tunes wasn't working on my number and i had to manually enable it again. That must have wiped out a large part of the existing user base i would think. I am an oldie and I used it so it had appeal across the board. I urge Telecom to reconsider and promote it with a couple of TV adds. If that doesn't work, then retire it. Too good a option just to disappear.

mxpress

Lurch

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Reply # 520820 14-Sep-2011 10:18

Have this on my VOIP phone for free, have to love VOIP ;-) To be honest I thought Telecom had dropped it years ago, the power of advertising? :-P

akia

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Reply # 520881 14-Sep-2011 11:41

We have looked at all options including retaining the service. Unfortunately the decision made is a done deal.

Shock

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Reply # 520892 14-Sep-2011 12:00

I feel I need to split my response to this into 2 parts.

Mature hat on:
At the end of the day the decision will be a financial one but the end user experience is diminished because it removes a 'value add' service. In this case you are removing the customers ability to customise your service to reflect some of thier personality. One would hope that this is picked up in other areas or a newer more economical version of this service.

Releasing the inner manchild:
This is like the death of Goose in Top Gun to me. You are taking away my Kenny Loggins - Danger Zone you bloody buggers ! I always got great responses from friends & colleagues about being greeted with that tune :( And then you rub this fact in with TWO text messages reminding me again of the death of Goose !! **** !!

Ok I am done.

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jonb

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Reply # 520911 14-Sep-2011 12:21

I've been with Telecom for six onths and didn't know this service existed..

SteveON

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Reply # 520914 14-Sep-2011 12:36

True, I liked this service when I was a kid, and TBH I was waiting for the day that the other operators came out with this. I guess there are more exciting things like HD voice to come instead.

nate

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Reply # 520928 14-Sep-2011 13:02

Shock: Ok I am done.

You have a death wish don't you

(for those of you out of the know, Shock has a "close relationship" with akia @ Telecom)

andyb

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Reply # 520934 14-Sep-2011 13:07

nate:
Shock: Ok I am done.

You have a death wish don't you

(for those of you out of the know, Shock has a "close relationship" with akia @ Telecom)

it is providing some entertainment - lol

graemeh

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Reply # 520941 14-Sep-2011 13:15

Shock: And then you rub this fact in with TWO text messages reminding me again of the death of Goose !! **** !!

Just be glad they didn't send a THIRD text message "opologising" for sending two!

mxpress

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Reply # 520954 14-Sep-2011 13:42

akia: We have looked at all options including retaining the service. Unfortunately the decision made is a done deal.

Hi Amber. It is never too late to reverse any decision and i would have thought that even the muted response here would have suggested that the service is a popular one. It also gave telecom an advantage over the other players and in this 'cut throat" world I would have thought that any advantage over one's competitors should never just be discarded because that is one less reason for customers to be attracted to your network rather than one of the others. Go on Amber, rattle some high up cages, make someone see sense, then PROMOTE the service so that people acutally know about it.

mxpress

andyb

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Reply # 520968 14-Sep-2011 14:07

From someone who is the closest to the service out of anyone in the organization I can confirm that all options have been looked at - I should know I looked at them and have been doing so for a really long time.

Sometimes tough decisions have to be made, this is one of them, it wasn't made lightly.

I have had the same Caller Tune since I built and launched the Product so am rather attached to it also.

Unfortunately 2 messages were sent out to some customers - I apologise for this.

Andrew
Senior Product Manager - Data Products and VAS

Behodar

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Reply # 521000 14-Sep-2011 15:22

jonb: I've been with Telecom for six onths and didn't know this service existed..

I can top that; been with Telecom for three years and didn't know about it.

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