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Motorola reporting requirement divides dealers Jules K. Neuringer, president of Portronix Communications, Brooklyn, NY, faces the termination of his Motorola Radius communications products reseller agreement because he doesn’t want to provide Motorola with what he calls proprietary customer information.
Motorola wants Neuringer and all of its resellers to report “end-customer made-sale” data every month. Neuringer said that the information Motorola wanted includes the purchaser’s industry classification, contact name, title, company name, address and phone number. It also includes the product model number, serial number, sales price, marketing method and whether the sale is the first to that customer.
Aside from compliance, the alternatives Motorola had offered to Neuringer are for Portronix to cancel its reseller agreement on its own initiative or to let Motorola do it. The reseller agreement expired on June 30.
The Motorola dealer contract said, in effect, “You must send us monthly marketing reports in whatever form we specify,” Neuringer explained. The requirement for such detailed customer information “was an eye-opener because I thought our customer list was our property and none of anyone else’s business,” he said.
Neuringer said he has letters from customers who say that if Portronix supplies such information to a third party, they won’t do business. He said that his customers knew about Motorola’s requests.
“Who is my allegiance to? The customer, or to Motorola?” he asked. “Either I’m a jerk in standing my ground, or there are other dealers being bullied equally.”
Neuringer said that Motorola told him, “Don’t tell the customers you’re giving us the information.”
“I said: ‘That’s not fair. My customers have a right to know I’m giving details about them to a third party.'”
Some other dealers comply Some dealers embrace Motorola’s marketing strategy. David C. Reeves, owner of P & R Communications, Dayton, OH, said, “What other choice do we have? But we’re not worried. They’re my customers, and I don’t care if Motorola knows who they are because I’m doing my job.”
Motorola continues to sell large systems direct from the factory. Reeves said that add-on business to those large systems might flow to dealers. He said he believed that Motorola’s marketing strategy would allow the company to control the channel of distribution better.
Reeves’ primary concern was with data entry and the labor cost to do it. His business management software vendor, CRI, is working on automatic processing to transfer data from P & R Communications’ records automatically to Motorola’s reporting software.
William Landis, owner of TuWay Wireless in Bethlehem, PA, said that his key concern was the labor required for entering sales information in Motorola’s software. But he doesn’t fear that Motorola might use the information to sell directly to his customers.
At Central Communications & Electronics in Knoxville, TN, owner Tim Curbow pointed out that when Motorola used to have factory sales representatives, it had the kind of information it now seeks from its dealers.
“I see it as a positive to allow them to tailor marketing plans for direct mail to analyze data,” Curbow said.
Motorola responds Speaking for Motorola, Wayne Foret, vice president of the Radio Products Americas Group Distribution Division for the United States and Canada, said that the company is modernizing its dealer channel marketing program to a level similar to manufacturers in other industries, such as automobiles and appliances.
He said most dealers have no marketing specialist. In contrast, the largest dealers have a marketing manager and conduct catalog campaigns. “We not only want to find out end-user requirements, we want to bring the end-users to the dealers’ doors, coupons in hand, saying, ‘We want to buy another radio,'” Foret said.
Bruce Heyman, director of strategy and business development for Motorola’s Radio Products Division, added that it’s common for auto purchasers to receive coupons, thank-yous and information in the mail targeted to the car model purchased.
“The mailings look as though they come from the dealer, but they come from the manufacturer,” he said.
He said that Motorola dealers have the ability to draw reports from the database. They can target mailings to existing customers or to potential customers because of Motorola’s link with Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). Dealers receive reports on “made sales” and access to the D&B database, letting them know about businesses in their area.
Foret added, “If you were a two-way radio dealer that carries several manufacturers’ products, and one produces leads for you, that manufacturer is adding value. We think that’s a good reason to be in business with Motorola because it brings leads and low-cost, add-on sales,” he explained.
Foret also commented about apprehensions dealers might have about Motorola using the information to sell directly to their customers.
“In two or three years, dealers will have more responsibility, not less. It would be foolish for us to turn on the dealer channel like that. Our cost now is less because the channel belongs to the dealers. They pay the insurance and salaries connected with sales. What we save shows up as a discount to dealers. We have to strengthen the channel. They say, ‘Help us with our marketing.’ One way we can is to help them avoid having to cold-call for every radio sale and to go into the databank and remind customers that this is a good time to consider an add-on or trade-out,” Foret said.
Heyman said that it wasn’t possible for Motorola to make exceptions regarding the type of information it requires from dealers because of antitrust law regarding manufacturer relationships with dealers.
“You have to treat every dealer the same way,” he said.
Second, he said that it would be against Motorola policy to mislead customers about the information being collected.
“We have no problem being forthright with customers in collecting the information and explaining what we’re doing with it. It gets matched up with D&B. The information helps us to do the best job of matching to D&B. We’re trying to get the ‘Duns’ number to tell us, for example, whether the customer has one location or many locations. We wouldn’t want our dealers to tell customers that we’re not collecting the information,” Heyman said
Heyman agreed that the program was labor-intensive.
“We are deploying a new version of the software in mid-May that will allow a productivity or speed improvement factor of four to 40. That’s a big range, and the actual factor depends on how large the dealer database is and how big the computer is. Some tasks that used to take 40 minutes will be done in well under a minute,” Heyman said.
Still some questions Back at Portronix, Jules Neuringer remains concerned and unsatisfied.
“Shouldn’t our customers have the right to ‘opt out’ of having specific, and possibly proprietary, information transmitted to a third party?” he asked.
“Unless other dealers wake up and question the direction in which Motorola is headed with regards to end-user buying habits, they may discover that one day Motorola will be selling directly to those dealers’ customers,” he said.
“Of course, dealers have always had a choice regarding products to sell. We can certainly offer our customers the opportunity to purchase comparable products from other, less-nosy manufacturers. Given the choice between having detailed purchasing information relayed to a manufacturer, or having their buying habits remain confidential, I think most customers would choose the latter,” Neuringer concluded. -D.B.
Editor’s note: See www.mrtmag.com for a copy of the letter from Motorola dealer Jules Neuringer, comments from other dealers and additional information from Motorola about the Impact 21 program. Click on “Online Extras” and go to “Letters to the Editor” for Neuringer’s letter and to “Industry News” for the expanded story.
Wireless messaging aids pager service The Ohio-based communications provider Cleveland Mobile Tele-Trak has experienced a 69% increase in business over last year and an 80% increase expected overall for 2000, according to a Hark Systems press release.
According to Ronald Lauber, general manager of Cleveland Mobile, the company’s success is attributable to the popularity of “Wireless Messaging,” the premium service that offers alphanumeric paging.
“The customers feel they are getting more service for less,” Lauber said. “I don’t think we’ve sold one numeric pager in two and a half years, that’s how well this concept sells.”
Wireless Messaging is part of the Omega System provided by Hark Systems, Charleston, SC. The system gives the user the ability to send transcribed messages to an email account.
LMCC questions FCC refarming The Land Mobile Communications Council (LMCC) filed supplemental comments concerning issues raised on reconsideration of the FCC’s Refarming Second Memorandum Opinion and Order, FCC 99-68, released July 6, 1999.
Some of the petitions for reconsideration dealt with interference concerns on the VHF and UHF frequencies historically shared by manufacturers, forest products companies, and utilities, and petroleum and telephone companies.
At its annual meeting, the LMCC agreed to urge the commission to adopt a rule to avoid interference on these frequencies. Under the new rule, any coordinator with an application whose interfering contour would overlap an incumbent’s service contour would be required to contact either the incumbent or its preferred coordinator before forwarding the application to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau’s Gettysburg, PA, licensing offices.
On receipt of the notification, the incumbent or its coordinator would have the opportunity to express its concurrence, or lack thereof, to the originating coordinator. In most cases, the proponent and incumbent are expected to use engineering solutions to resolve the problem.
RSI joins forces with Day Wireless, others Radiofrequency Safety International (RSI) has formed alliances with C.E.S., Day Wireless, Gotcher Tower Service and Telecom Global Solutions. These companies are certified field service representatives for RSI, and they will offer consulting and training services for RSI customers. The expanded services are to help RSI clients bring their telecommunications and manufacturing installations into compliance with the FCC’s OET Bulletin 65 regarding RF safety by the Sept. 1, 2000, deadline.
RadioSoft opens new, expanded facility RadioSoft, Edgewater, FL, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new, expanded facility in June. The new facility allows for expansion of the company’s programming, engineering and coordinator staff. Separate areas have been created for a generator backed-up server room as well as a conference and training center.
Chadmoore Wireless buys DCMA technology Chadmoore Wireless Group, Las Vegas, announced an agreement with ComSpace, Dallas, on April 3, 2000, to purchase and test-market ComSpace’s digital technology, DCMA, in a selected market. DCMA can be selectively implemented where additional capacity is required either for additional users or added features. When implemented, it allows for an eight-fold increase in capacity for each analog channel.
Robert Moore, Chadmoore president, said, “We believe ComSpace’s DCMA technology is an exciting and affordable way to maximize the number of customers that can be served. It will also allow Chad-moore to provide greater functionality such as short messaging, data transmission and is scheduled to provide for the functionality for the new wireless applications protocol (WAP) applications for its customer base.”
