Telecom cuddles up to Asian customers

Karen Chong. Picture / Fotopress

Telecom wants to harvest more revenue from the growing Asian population through the appointment of a marketing specialist to develop "better understanding of the ethnic market".

Already banks, luxury car dealers and real estate agents have appointed specialists to service what can be high spending but demanding customers.

Malaysian-born Karen Chong, Telecom marketing manager for Asian markets, will promote products and services aimed at "New Zealanders from China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan".

Before landing at Telecom she was marketing director for the Boston Consulting Group, based in Malaysia.

Her role is within the wireline team but as it develops she will be looking at how mobile can also service Asian customers.

It is a departure for telcos in New Zealand as neither TelstraClear nor Vodafone have resources dedicated solely to Asians.

Chong said Telecom was under pressure in the toll market to win Asian customers, particularly with offerings from second-tier telcos such as Call Plus and Compass.

"The competition for the toll spend is fierce and when Asians get on the phone to home they like to talk."

Asians' love of brands has not escaped Chong.

She said Telecom was a solid, established company, which was something it could use more.

Asians liked to know they were buying the best quality, she said.

Chong refused to divulge the value of the Asian market to Telecom but said that after Australia, the United States and Britain, it was a key part of the company's revenue.

Language school students were obviously strong customers, she said, but as trade into Asia increased, Telecom would need to be much closer to that segment of the market.

Statistics New Zealand says the Asian population is expected to reach 604,000 in 2021, more than double the estimated resident population of 272,000 Asians in June 2001.

Much of that growth, says Statistics New Zealand, is expected to be from migration.

Chong said cultural imperatives meant Asians, no matter what country they were from, always called home, especially where family groups were split.

"Being Chinese myself and having grown up in a multicultural country like Malaysia, I understand the cultural differences between different ethnicities," she said.

"Our spoken language could differ but our underlying cultural beliefs are very similar."

Telecom is also using festival sponsorship and culture-based marketing to lure brand-conscious Asians.

A special promotion at the Diwali Festival pushed calls to India and it will be hawking its wares from a tent at the Chinese New Year Lantern Festival.

"Family and festivities play a significant role in Asian culture," said Chong. "Our regular calling specials, such as the recent Korean promotion for Ch'usok, provide a simple and affordable way for families to stay in touch, particularly during festival time."

She has already identified issues she wants to explore. Among them is a review of 123 to see it meets the language requirements of Asia customers and, secondly, the possibility of an Asian language portal.

Ironically, Clear Communications in its early days ran a series of advertisements showing the varied languages used by its staff to get calls across.

Nothing was formal yet, said Chong, but Telecom was treating the ethnic market as very significant.

Asians tended to be technologically savvy, and Telecom had to make sure it was offering them the products to keep them happy.

Tolls were the major business for Telecom's Asian customers but the company had loads of other ways to service them, said Chong.

Many small businesses were owned by Asians, she said, and there were probably ways an Asian-friendly Telecom could help them.