UK’s 3G network operator, 3, is interesting to follow as, to their credit, they keep trying new things. Sure, some may not work (like denying net access to subscribers) but some will and that’s where their growth will come from.

WePay, launched today, is another innovation and I find myself rather intrigued. It rewards Pay As You Go Customers with cash credits for receiving incoming calls and text messages. Subscribers get 5p per minute for inbound calls and 2p per sms, with the money being able to be spent against any 3 service.

OK, sceptics will probably be wondering how this is going to help generate traffic as an individual can’t do much to get people to call them. Therefore, aren’t they just going to be throwing away margin un-necessarily?

My view is that we need to look at this as a customer acquisition model. If you’re a customer who “happens” to get an awful lot of incoming, wouldn’t it now make sense to switch to 3, if you haven’t already?

But it’s actually cleverer than that. People making and receiving a high number of calls (especially receiving them) are likely to be important within their peer group. I’d go further and suggest that the more inbound calls you receive as a proportion of your outbound ones, the more you’re likely to be considered a leader within your social circle. This is because people are trying to hook up with you, rather than you chasing them for contact.

So by directly targeting the important social movers, it may end up with the Alpha socialites all owning 3 phones. And the Beta socialites tend to emulate their betters, don’t they?

It would be intriguing to know if 3 are thinking in quite these terms or if I’m over-analysing again!

Update: It seems like there’s not much new in this type of offer and it may be short-lived if Rumania is anything to go by. According to a reader of The Register:

“Something similar was offered by [major cellco] here, in Romania, for a student-oriented service. What happened was that students signed up for the service and then put up classified ads offering non-existent apartments, cars or other merchandise at too-good-to-be-true prices, asking to be called on their mobiles. As far as I know, [major cellco] had to withdraw the offer.”

Original story Via Net Imperative