Infinite Path

Are you fed up with paying extortionate amounts of money every month towards your phone bill? Well, there could soon be a solution to ease your financial woes. GiffGaff is a new initiative being launched in the UK by O2 later in the year which aims to recruit mobile phone users to answer the questions and help with the problems suffered by other users of the service.

GiffGaff will be the first people-powered mobile phone operator and users will infiltrate online spaces, including forums, in order to answer specific questions. Recruitment of additional customers is also likely to figure highly on the to-do lists of those who choose to be involved.

It would seem that O2 has struck gold with this idea. The internet is already packed full of individuals who, in effect, perform PR for companies of all sizes without even thinking about it. People who are passionate about a particular product or service and decide to voice their opinions in busy forums or popular blogs can increase sales and awareness significantly. Building a business model around this concept is clever and could be a real success as the savings made on paying members of staff combine with decreased overhead costs.

The potential for growth is also handed a boost by the concept behind the service. By conducting such a large percentage of customer interaction in online spaces, awareness of GiffGaff could spread like wildfire. Whereas with conventional mobile phone operators, questions are answered on a one-to-one basis over the phone with a customer services representative, with GiffGaff these same conversations are free for all to see in public online spaces. Spreading brand awareness in this way could be a handy by-product of the service’s innovative business model.

The added incentive for regular contributors to the service, which will run on the increasingly popular Sim-only basis which sees customers keeping their original handsets, of being rewarded twice a year with a cash rebate of up to 100% of the total used to top up their phone is also likely to be a real hit with cash-strapped consumers. It is thought that approximately one in five of GiffGaff’s users will receive rebates of some kind.