Being the best is not easy. T-Mobile does not take its position as the number one mobile services provider for granted. It is constantly searching for new opportunities. When they decided to discover their potential in the area of financial services, specifically loans, we were there to help.
First success in just a month
At Direct People we always build our innovations on customer real-time needs. Every new product or service must first of all be useful to the end user. This project was no different, so it was the customers who played the leading role again.
In the first phase, we verified their needs and gathered their opinion about various loan concepts. Based on the interviews we designed three different products that potential customers themselves tried to negotiate with the provider in the second phase. As a result, we chose one concept that we subjected to further testing and offered it to real clients at T-Mobile branches. And it was a success – 68% of clients confirmed binding interest. Furthermore, we were able to complete all three testing phases in just one month.
1 000 clients in 1 week
After successful testing, we fine-tuned the concept and launched a big pilot project, in which we reached more than 50 000 clients with a loan offer.The result? Phenomenal! 1 000 clients applied for a loan in the first seven days from the pilot launch.
The combined success of the initial experiment and the subsequent testing followed by an even better pilot project and enormous market potential were so convincing that T-Mobile decided to offer its loans to the entire market. Moreover, they are considering expanding the service to Slovakia.
The product that won customers in detail
• Loan amount between 5 000 and 15 000 CZK, adjustable by 200 CZK.
• Customer knows in advance repayment amount: ten installments + one additional installment as interest.
• Installments paid together with the phone bill – no extra paperwork.
• Early repayment rewarded by 25% discount on a two-month tariff.
• Pre-approval by T-Mobile ensures 100% certainty of getting a loan.
• Money sent to the customer’s account within a few hours.
• Loan application available fully online.
What They Say
“It was my dream to offer financial services in T-Mobile. At the same time, I was worried that entering a completely new business might be a failure. Prototyping with Direct People was a great way to check which of our hypotheses were true and which were not. The project caused a small revolution in the company. Thanks to careful product specification and the right communication strategy we reached unprecedented sales results. I only realized how big of a success it is when I got a call from our CEO and we went together to present the project at the Deutsche Telekom’s CFOs meeting. Much of this success belongs to Direct People!”
Pavel Vlasaný
Senior Management Payments and Collections
About T-Mobile
The number one cell service provider in the Czech market.
With more than 6 million customers and 3 500 employees, T-Mobile is the leading provider of mobile services in the Czech Republic. It was founded as Paegas in 1996 and entered the international market (as T-Mobile) in 2002. In 2017 the company merged with Slovak Telekom. Today, T-Mobile offers not only mobile services but also complete ICT solutions.