Ding, Dong: Wireless Calling

by: Deborah Méndez-Wilson - Wireless Week, August 14, 2000

The doorbell rings. It's your neighbor. She's not selling cookies or cosmetics. She's selling telecom bundles.

Turns out, she is one of "hundreds of thousands" of independent sales representatives for Excel Communications Inc., a telecom provider that recently began reselling wireless services over the Sprint PCS network.

For more than a decade, Excel has sold long-distance services. In April, the company launched wireless offerings and now has sales representatives in 17 cities, including New York, San Francisco, New Orleans and Denver. And while Excel's marketing strategy may seem a bit unconventional in the wireless arena, it is doing something quite familiar: plugging bucket-minute plans with long-distance and roaming included.

The company says its reason for entering the wireless arena is simple: Customers and sales representatives were demanding it. Excel's entry into wireless is a natural as consumers seek more "self help" among today's confusing array of choices.

Analysts say the company is filling a void and simplifying a telecom segment complicated by competing technology platforms, rate plans, carriers and handsets. Whether the company's door-to-door sales strategy will be as effective in wireless as it has been in long-distance likely will not become clear for several months, however.

Mike Roudi, Excel's vice president of product marketing and development, believes the Excel distribution channel will simplify the wireless buying experience. "We've saved you an hour at a retail outlet and from buying a [wireless plan] from some person you don't know. And we just closed the deal in your home," he says.

He won't say how many people sell Excel services or what their commissions are. The company does not give away pink Cadillacs, but it has bestowed personal computers on "qualifying" representatives. Excel sales representatives also must believe in what they are selling or they won't pass what the company calls a "red-face test," Roudi says. "If they sold that phone to their mom, brother or sister [and couldn't pass the test], at the next family event, they're going to get killed," he says.

Excel, a subsidiary of the Montreal-based Teleglobe Inc.-an international broadband provider being acquired by Bell Canada Enterprises-eventually plans to offer wireless services across the United States. Under its Sprint PCS agreement, products and services will be Excel-branded. The company is offering five "Nation Rate" wireless plans that start at $35 per month and include 225 anywhere minutes, free long-distance, free in-network roaming, voice mail and features such as caller ID.

The deal allows Excel to enter the wireless market quickly and without heavy advertising and retail distribution costs. Excel will provide customer care and billing services, though. The company can provide long-distance service because it owns and operates its own nationwide facilities-based telecom network.

Excel's entry into telecom harkens back to its beginning, when it began as a switchless long-distance reseller in 1989. Last September, Excel appointed Christina Gold, a former Avon executive, to the vice chairman and chief executive post. Gold, credited with turning around Avon North America, spearheaded a marketing campaign in April that asked customers and potential sales reps, "Are you ready to Excel?"

Analysts say wireless is a no-brainer choice as the next arrow in Excel's telecom quiver and blame the industry itself for consumer confusion about wireless. Consumers increasingly are seeking direct channels or "smart help" that can eliminate the confusion, either through Web sites such as Point.com or through companies such as Excel, says Andersen Consulting analyst Richard Siber. "To add wireless to the mix makes perfect sense," Siber says of Excel.

Company executives hope, in the end, the Excel sales force will give the company an edge in wireless. "We encourage them to start with family and friends and, as they sell in those circles of acquaintances, just keep expanding outward," Roudi says.

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