Is There a Place For a Premium VoIP Service?

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Would People Pay a Premium For the Right Service?

My favorite marketing mind, Seth Godin, pointed out a company called Voce, a MVNO, who is looking to deliver a $200 per month premium cellular phone service. Seth, in typical fashion, is skeptical of the company, because a premium cellular service does not match the world view of what consumer expect from a cellular service - they expect poor call quality, poor customer service, and they are just waiting for the “bait and switch.” While I agree with Seth that this is the current world view of cellular service, world views can change, and premium services exist everywhere, because people will always be willing to pay more for a service that matches their world view of what a service should be.

Will Voce succeed, I don’t know, but is there a room for a premium cellular service provider. Voce’s success will be based on whether or not there are enough individuals who have a world view that matches the premium cellular service offering.

So What Does This Have to Do With VoIP?

Everything. In many ways, VoIP service has many parallels to cellualr service. If you remember, there was a time that cellular service was just like VoIP - a new, disruptive, way to communicate, that was often unreliable and plagued by quality quality problems. As the technology progressed, new start-ups came in to play, like T-mobile, who drove down monthly pricing, but offered less in terms of premium services. Over time, consumers accepted poor quality in exchange for lower prices, and thus the world view of cellular service was formed that one would experience dropped calls, poor call quality, bad customer service, and limited coverage areas.

The world view for VoIP service, though, is still being shaped. As a relatively new main stream technology, there is still an opportunity for a company (or companies), to break the prevailing worldview (that is not much unlike that of cellualr calling) by offering a premium VoIP service. Maybe there is no money in selling minutes, but there certainly is in selling premium services. The industry is still young, and with the bulk of the poluation still paying $75-$100 per month on their phone bill, there is room for a service that is $49.99 per month, that offers twice the premiums that Vonage (and their clones) offer.

With providers scared silly over the Verizon-Vonage patent suit, and the prevailing thoughts of voice falling towards zero, now is the time for someone to offer the premium VoIP service. The time is now, while the worldview of VoIP service has not been fully shaped and solidfied. Wait much longer, and as Seth says about Voce, you will have to prove your premium over and over and over again in order to have consumers believe your story. Changing a consumer worldview can be done, but it is extremly hard, it would be so much easier (and less expensive) to play a part in shaping it; for the better.