Loan from T-Mobile? YES from the customers

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 in it. Furthermore, we were able to complete all three testing phases in just one month.

1 000 clients in 1 week

After successful testing, we got into some fine tuning and then launched a big pilot project, in which we reached more than 50 000 clients with a loan offer. And 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 thinking about expanding the service to Slovakia as well.

(Together with a financial partner they are now preparing to bring it into full operation. So get ready to hear about T-Mobile not only as a mobile services provider anymore.)

The product that won customers in detail:

• Loan amounting between 5 000 and 15 000 CZK, adjustable by 200 CZK.
• The customer knows in advance how much he/she is ought to repay. It is really easy to determine: ten installments + one additional installment as interest.
• Installments are paid together with the phone bill, meaning no extra paperwork.
• Unlike most of the other financial institutions who penalize early repayment, T-Mobile rewards it by 25% discount on a two-month tariff.
• Pre-approval by T-Mobile means 100% certainty of getting a loan.
• Money is sent to the customer’s account within a few hours.
• Customers can apply for a loan online.

“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 Deutche Telekom’s CFOs meeting. Much of this success belongs to Direct People!”

Pavel Vlasaný
Senior Management Payments and Collections