Poland’s Vectra focuses on churn reduction and new services

Focusing on customer retention and maintaining good relations with existing customers is more important for cable than trying to increase ARPU from new services, according to Tomasz Zuranski, CEO of Vectra. 

Speaking at Informa’s Digital TV CEE conference in Krakow this morning, Zuranski said that Vectra had also managed to grow by gaining customers. The main factor for success was being price competitive in video services, he said. Vectra had offered new services but largely followed bigger operators rather than launching a large number of untested value-added services. He said Vectra had gained about 30,000 new customers to its recently launched mobile internet offering.

Zuranski said that there is fierce competition for customers in the Polish market with new entrants in the shape of digital-terrestrial TV and OTT service providers. It is increasingly difficult to differentiate offers and meet viewers’ expectations, he said.

Vectra’s intiatives for 2013 include the launch of VOD, OTT via the set-top, 30 live online channels and an increased HD lineup of 50 channels as it seeks to differenitate its service.

Zuranski said that Vectra currently has 7,200 active offers, including 26% targeted at new customers. He said that marketing strategies focusing on segmentation of the operator’s customer base had proved highly effective in retaining customers.

The most powerful way to retain customers remains the addition of new services to the current porfolio. Multiroom is highly effective, as is DVR, he said, adding that the launch of additional services such as HBO Go had proved an effective retention tool.

According to Vectra’s own research, price is the most important factor in choosing a service for 30% of customers, followed by number of channels for 28% and HD services for 20%. DVR was cited by 9%.

Sixty-three per cent of churners in 2012 took only one service, while those with three services only accounted for 7% of churners, said Zuranski.