Marketing in Europe: A perspective from the Netherlands

Telemarketing & Call Center Solutions, Jan 1996 by Tehrani, Nadji

Marketing has been very difficult, but KPN has an attitude that it will do whatever it takes to be competitive. KPN's market strategy is to maintain domestic marketing leadership, continue international expansions, pursue the commercialization of the full potential of core business and cable interests, and increase the growth of revenue and ROI by strengthening existing services and introducing new services and innovations (see Chart 1).(Chart omitted) KPN recorded total net sales of $12.686 billion in 1994. Among its fastest-growing categories in 1994 were direct mail and e-mail services. Mr. Griffioen felt that KPN's mobile category is underdeveloped and equipment is "our engaging product."

He summed up his feelings with the key point, "In order to grow in the international market, you need partners."

PTT Telecom's View On European Marketing

Filling me in on the European marketing scene was Mr. Ben J. M. Verwaayen, president of PTT Telecom. He stressed that "Europe is not united -- in services you must sell trust. In other works, to sell to a skeptical European, you must move from selling a commodity to selling the value added by your product or service. He stated that Europe is not one market, "it's markets marketing." Competition is vigorous, but each country has its own individual taste and style. "You'll never be successful in Germany with a Dutch salesman." he emphasized.

Business-to-business telemarketing is about the same in Europe as in the Unite States, but business-to-customer lags behind that in the United States. Although PTT Telecom has state-of-the-art technology, phone usage is low. Mr. Verwaayen pointed out that the average American picks up the phone 9.6 times a day, whereas the average Dutchman picks up the phone only 3.2 times a day.

PTT Telecom Call Centers

PTT Telecom started its first call center in 1993 and now has five, with the average size of a center being 30 to 40 agents. The decision to establish the first call center was twofold: 1) as a large organization, PTT Telecom wanted to change fixed costs to variable costs; and 2) to reduce their costs by at least 20 percent. Eighty percent of PTT Telecom's telemarketing is inbound, approximately 99 percent of which is high-tech support for clients like Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Novell. PTT Telecom's TSRs (telemarketing sales representatives) speak two to five languages, average 26 years of age, 80 percent are male and 70 percent have graduate degrees. PTT Telecom utilizes a Northern Telecom Meridian 1, giving it a capacity of 500 seats. PTT Telecom offers full-service, turnkey solutions and considers itself a one-stop marketing source.

PTT Telecom also runs the International Management Center to promote the services of KPN Multimedia, the objectives of which are to serve the customer while maximizing the number of completed calls. PTT Telecom sees future uses for multimedia in the consumer market, entertainment, working, learning, management and shopping.

PTT Telecom Partnership -- Unisource