In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Not "difficult". Impossible. At the very best, if my earlier route works, (which seems unlikely as it didn't for Oliver), almost impossible.

If I was an average consumer shopping for broadband only I would have looked at the Plusnet website, not seen it and moved on elsewhere. For Bob to say "nothing stopping somebody calling our Sales Team" is bonkers, I wouldn't call an ISP on the off chance that they might have some product hidden somewhere or other that they don't like mentioning, and I doubt many would.

In reply to a post by bpullen:

In reply to a post by 4M2:

Also makes linking to your BB only deals rather haphazard from this forum...

Does this not work for everybody?

Well I can navigate to that link using IE8 from http://www.plus.net/?home=hometop but folks using other browsers on this forum may not...

BTW. I was a little disappointed the other day to discover that unlimited BB only on a 30 day minimum term was more expensive per month than the headline £9.99 on Market 2/3 ("low cost area") exchanges

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

So not good or honest, then.

Interesting!!

Following on from this thread (& your specific observation) I thought I would Google PN & see where it takes me!

Following a Google Search I'm taken to a paid-for advert with a link for "1/2 price Broadband" (i.e. NO reference to a requirement to take the Phone Service).

On following that link it takes me to a page advertising 1/2 Broadband with Phone!! However I do notice there is also a Broadband Only tab - but this does NOT offer 1/2 price Broadband.

In other words, PN are advertising an offer (i.e. 1/2 price Broadband) but do NOT appear to make it available (as advertised) unless it is linked to Phone provision as well!

Oliver341, I'm reminded of your observation!

In case you haven't read it yet, ASA recently had words with Plusnet: http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/i/5813.html

In reply to a post by bpullen:

you can still choose broadband only by entering the order journey and then customising your broadband package during the sign-up journey.

One shouldn't have to go thro' the unnecessary motions of an abortive order journey just to window-shop for prices of required products. I'd rather move on to the next shop.

EDIT: I would be a prospective PN cust for BB Only if Orange ever goes the O2/Be route or suchlike .

Edited by XRaySpeX (Thu 09-May-13 13:28:41)

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Not "difficult". Impossible. At the very best, if my earlier route works, (which seems unlikely as it didn't for Oliver), almost impossible.

If I was an average consumer shopping for broadband only I would have looked at the Plusnet website, not seen it and moved on elsewhere.

Which is something that's been considered as part of the testing. Each version of the site will drive a certain amount of sales. It's entirely possible one will perform significantly worse compared to others. Split testing isn't a newly devised tactic and we're certainly not the first company to do it.

In reply to a post by 4M2:

BTW. I was a little disappointed the other day to discover that unlimited BB only on a 30 day minimum term was more expensive per month than the headline £9.99 on Market 2/3 ("low cost area") exchanges

Has been since the back-end of last year. Monthly contracts typically cost an extra £2.50pcm.

In reply to a post by johnjburness:

Following a Google Search I'm taken to a paid-for advert with a link for "1/2 price Broadband" (i.e. NO reference to a requirement to take the Phone Service).

Don't suppose you fancy screen-grabbing that for me do you?

Not proud of the ASA ticking off. It's pretty uncharacteristic of us.

Rgds,

In reply to a post by bpullen:

In reply to a post by 4M2:

BTW. I was a little disappointed the other day to discover that unlimited BB only on a 30 day minimum term was more expensive per month than the headline £9.99 on Market 2/3 ("low cost area") exchanges

Has been since the back-end of last year. Monthly contracts typically cost an extra £2.50pcm.

Would it be possible to include that in the "legal bit"? I had to find that out from here http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/products/low_c... !!!

In reply to a post by bpullen:

In reply to a post by johnjburness:

Following a Google Search I'm taken to a paid-for advert with a link for "1/2 price Broadband" (i.e. NO reference to a requirement to take the Phone Service).

Don't suppose you fancy screen-grabbing that for me do you?

Not proud of the ASA ticking off. It's pretty uncharacteristic of us.

Rgds,

Bob, Not certain how I would take a screen-grab & then post it here!!

However, just typing in Plusnet to Google takes me to:-
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=plusnet&ie=utf-8&o...

To which I note the following:-

Ads related to plusnet

plus.net - Plusnet Official Site‎
www.plus.net/Plusnet
1/2 Price Unlimited Broadband for 9 Months - Limited Time!‎
1/2 Price Broadband
1/2 Price Fibre Broadband

Plusnet Business Broadband
Award-Winning Broadband

As you can see, there is nothing that links the "1/2 Price" to a requirement to have the Phone Service included!

In reply to a post by bpullen:

Each version of the site will drive a certain amount of sales. It's entirely possible one will perform significantly worse compared to others. Split testing isn't a newly devised tactic and we're certainly not the first company to do it.

Well it may be common, but I've never encountered it before.

I have two comments.

1) Is it also common for one or more versions of the website to completely omit any path to certain products? Specifically those with a lower overall profit margin? Not even a clue to their existence? Understandable with trial flavours of KitKat, but broadband?

2) If I went to a site a few times to check certain aspects against a competitor I was considering, and found not only a different view sometimes but information I knew I had seen shortly before was no longer there, I would run a mile from such apparent incompetence.

Far from providing useful marketing information to increase sales, it is much more likely to produce marketing information indicating the need to "redeploy" some of that department's staff.

How difficult has it been to overcome a historic bad reputation, and how easily will this tactic destroy all that hard work? The tactic, nay - the strategy, needs immediate binning before it has the wrong effect.

In reply to a post by bpullen:

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

If I was an average consumer shopping for broadband only I would have looked at the Plusnet website, not seen it and moved on elsewhere.

Which is something that's been considered as part of the testing. Each version of the site will drive a certain amount of sales. It's entirely possible one will perform significantly worse compared to others. Split testing isn't a newly devised tactic and we're certainly not the first company to do it.

This isn't a reply to Bob - but rather to everyone currently criticising the problem that some versions of the website prove to be "less nice" than others.

This is indeed the whole point of split-testing - it is to send a proportion of your potential customers down different sales/marketing journeys, and to measure the outcome.

The outcomes measured, for commercial companies, tends to be about the lifetime value of a customer - so includes the initial sign-up, and many future purchases. However, it works by averaging the outcome over a large number of visitors (or "prospects")

The downside of this kind of testing is that *some* customers end up going down a "worse" journey, and fail to sign up, where they would have joined if they followed a different path. The statistics will tend to show these things up - and the worst cases will be rapidly discarded from the test.

In this case the test will show the balance between a possible increase in income because people move phone too, against a loss of income because the people who want broadband only walk away. You don't know which will win until you test it.

I've seen split-testing happen over many aspects - headlines, text content, page layout, colours, and even on the raw price of a product (though haven't seen this with Plusnet). Imagine that you *could* have bought a product a lot cheaper, if only the computer had chosen a different version of the website for you!

And no - raising the price doesn't necessarily drop sales. But you only know if you test it.

As Bob says, split-testing is happening everywhere, in all forms of advertising, marketing and promotion.