Intellipop — a broadband provider based in Payson, Utah — has experienced impressive growth in the last few years, doubling their internal team and nearly tripling their subscriber base. Last week, Intellipop Founding Member Aaron Hildreth told Telecompetitor he attributes this growth to the company’s focus on customer experience.
Hildreth said his interest in customer experience was piqued at the start of his career, when he worked as a tech support representative in a call center. In that role, he was advised by his supervisors to be dishonest with customers.
“One time, I asked, ‘Why do we transfer people to cancel their service? I can do that right here.’ And [my supervisor], deadpan, looked at me and said, ‘If you switch them to a different queue and put them on hold, there’s a 14% chance they will hang up and pay another month of service.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, how do these people sleep at night?’”
Hildreth said that, when he started Intellipop, he wanted to take customer service “the opposite direction” from his early experiences.
“Surely, you can treat people right and make money in this world.”
To Hildreth, customer experience means being accountable to customers and taking ownership of their problems, being honest with them, and educating them on how to improve their service.
He said he discovered, early on, that people generally don’t know the specifics of the technology used to deliver their internet service.
“[We are going to] sell internet. It doesn’t matter if it’s open access, fiber, it doesn’t matter if [we] own the fiber, it doesn’t matter if it’s fixed wireless — it doesn’t matter. I’m selling an experience to someone. And it’s [our] job to make that experience as good as it can be.”
One of the ways Intellipop has ensured a positive customer experience is through the recent implementation of an online ordering system, powered by gaiia.
“People want barriers removed; they don’t want to go through a process of a hundred different pages to sign up for service,” said Hildreth. “With every barrier we have removed from the signup process, we’ve noticed our sales increase.”
Because Intellipop operates on several open-access networks — each with its own ordering system — they had a manual process for entering customer orders. Their online ordering system has enabled the integration of disparate systems, so the process is much simpler for the Intellipop team.
“From the customer perspective, they go online, they sign up, they pick a package, they get a confirmation email quickly that their order’s being processed, and they should expect a phone call soon to schedule,” said Hildreth.
The online system was so successful that Intellipop introduced a new customer experience tool: technical support and new orders via text. “People love it. With five little text messages, we get a customer.”
Because people’s lives are so saturated with distractions — especially online — Intellipop’s goal is to “ruthlessly” make the process of ordering as smooth as possible. And the company’s focus on customer experience and reducing barriers to entry has worked, with their customer count tripling in the last two years.
Hildreth said he can’t imagine why someone wouldn’t want to automate their systems to improve their customer experience. “Do you want to grow? Do you want to scale? I don’t know how else you do it.”
