“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein

Leadership Profile: Maggie Wilderotter (Part 4)

Sunday, March 25, 2007 | 4 comments

Technology, as we all know, changes rapidly and but do customers adopt as quickly? Here Maggie shares her insight regarding customers, and what their expectations are in terms of technology. Her views are interesting, especially when compared to those who tend to cater mostly to the early adopters.

SM: From where you were at that time versus now, how has the customer changed? MW: I think the fundamentals of what customers expect have not changed. I think the fundamentals are about how they want simple products and services that they can understand and use. Customers want to pay for value, they want benefits. They are really technology agnostic. They don’t care if it is wireless or wireline, what they care about is what they can do with this capability to improve their life or livelihood. I will say that, in this era of instantaneous communication, expectations are higher in terms of response time, connect time, and in terms of providing services 24×7.

SM: The sales cycle must have gone down. Customers have a lot more knowledge now. You don’t need to educate the market as much, right? MW: I believe we are still educating the market. As technology moves forward, there is usually a three to five year lag for customers before they really grab a hold of what the technology means to them, and to gain mass market acceptance. You will always have early adapters. You, Sramana, have the great privilege of living in an area, Silicon Valley, where there are many early adopters.

I do this in rural America with the second largest telephone company in the rural sector. Many of my customers have not caught up with the new technologies like people you associate with every single day in Silicon Valley. For example, in several of my markets, 40% of my customer base does not own a computer. It is not the same in some of the rural areas of the United States as it is in the big cities. People who run companies have to keep in context that their customers need the opportunity to catch up with technology.

SM: That’s true. You are dealing with an ultimate late adopter customer base! Entirely different ballgame marketing to that segment.

This segment is part 4 in a 14 part series Segment 5 →
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