Free Phones Could Help Wireless Use, Loyalty

Giveaways of specially configured mobile phones and other wireless handheld devices could be one of the next trends in the nascent wireless financial services market. A growing number of brokerages are currently lining up private-label deals by which wireless carriers or third-party fulfillment houses will configure phones or other devices with the brokers' own wireless trading applications, says Stephen J. Tempini, senior vice president of financial services for Proxicom Inc., a Reston, Va., e-business consulting and development firm. In many cases, the brokers are planning to give the phones or handhelds away to their best customers as part of a customer retention strategy, Tempini notes. "It's really a speed-to-market issue to get wireless devices into the hands of their customers to give them easy access to their account information," he says. One goal is to prevent customers from defecting to competitors that are already up and running with prominent screen menu positions on various wireless networks. Proxicom is working with about a dozen different brokers on such deals, with plans to get the phones or devices into the field over the next several months, Tempini says.