A good idea?

[Mavo]

I have spotted elsewhere what could potentially be a good idea.
 It seems from the recently published quarterly financial returns that someone has been able to come up with the information that it is currently costing The Former Company 98 pence to generate every £1.00 of points sold to new members.
A financial director no longer with the company but highly regarded for his business accumen, so we must assume Geoff Bruce, came up with the idea of shutting sales down for a couple of years. Now on the face of it this may seem a somewhat ludicrous suggestion. But is it? If the sales returns are as poor as suggested then the idea is sound as there will be a saving on wages and commissions. There will be no adverse publicity generated by mis selling, which is mainly responsible for the current state of the company. Most important of all will be the fact that the bad publicity out there at the moment will start to become old news. Once sales are started up again in a couple of years and in an open and honest manner then anyone wishing to research in their 14 day cooling of period would have to go back over 2 years to find anything detrimental.

[Boss Man]

quote:saving on wages and commissions

Maybe the sales people could go onto commission only are sales are that much more difficult.

[Mavo]

quote:Originally posted by Timesharetalk

quote:saving on wages and commissions

Maybe the sales people could go onto commission only are sales are that much more difficult.

 Commission is the major cause of the current problems as it leads directly to mis selling.

[wolfgangbrand]

Here another suggestion:

What about rethinking the marketing strategy. At the moment The Former Company Europe does what most timeshare companies do: sell a an expensive product to people having difficulties with such a huge financial commitment. What about reorganising the marketing departments to be able to target the top end of the market just like Marriott's is doing it?

I know that this would require some drastic changes and some cash to be invested. New Marketing Directors, inbound call centers as opposed to outbound cold calling and massive advertising and branding campaigns, and most importantly adapting the product to the needs and wants of middle class people which obviously would result in price increase.

In short: selling a better product for more money to different people. ( LOL Multi million marketing plan in one sentence)

[Mavo]

quote:Originally posted by wolfgangbrand

Here another suggestion:

What about rethinking the marketing strategy. At the moment The Former Company Europe does what most timeshare companies do: sell a an expensive product to people having difficulties with such a huge financial commitment. What about reorganising the marketing departments to be able to target the top end of the market just like Marriott's is doing it?

I know that this would require some drastic changes and some cash to be invested. New Marketing Directors, inbound call centers as opposed to outbound cold calling and massive advertising and branding campaigns, and most importantly adapting the product to the needs and wants of middle class people which obviously would result in price increase.

In short: selling a better product for more money to different people. ( LOL Multi million marketing plan in one sentence)

All well and good but they would re-employ the very same reps who would simply mis sell all over again. This is my great fear and only the demise of the scam reps will eradicate the problems in the industry. Go upmarket by all means but do not employ "used car salesmen" to sell a better product, it should be good enough to sell itself.

Re "selling to middle classes"
It is worth noting that one of the mis selling allegations involved the selling of low numbers of points as this got round the stringent searches that would have been required if higher levels of credit were being sought by new members.

[Simoncc]

[/quote]
 Commission is the major cause of the current problems as it leads directly to mis selling.
[/quote]

I agree totally with this. When I attended a GVC seminar the cost quoted was £7,000 for 50 points. I wonder how much of this figure disappeared in commission to various parties?

It would require a complete culture change for a company to switch from maximising initial profit from punters to actually maximising long term profitability from happy customers.

I don't think that The Former Company has the portfolio to attract the Marriott costumer but there are plenty of people who would be willing to invest a sensible amount of money in a straight forward product.

A similar idea is the The Holiday Property Bond (www.hpb.co.uk). With this you effectively buy a share in the portfolio of the club and can sell it back directly to them at any time. You only pay additional fees when you use your points.

I don't know if they also have difficlulties with peak time availability but I've never heard of wholescale complaints

[Mavo]

I agree totally with this. When I attended a GVC seminar the cost quoted was £7,000 for 50 points. I wonder how much of this figure disappeared in commission to various parties?

Hi Simon
In The Former Company`s case it has been reported as over 80% and I did see one figure of 98% somewhere. Frightening isn`t it ? Especially when we see reports on crimeshare of how the commissions are often spent.

[boiler]

Mavo I think that when you have shirt all over you from one company and the word is spread, what ever you do you cannot loose the smell!! Even if they start up again, the in-between period, still keeps people talking ( or writing).   PLEASE do not take the "R" out of shirt.