Case Type: new product; finance & economics.
Consulting Firm: Capital One final round job interview.
Industry Coverage: telecommunications; financial services.
Case Interview Question #00256: Suppose you have just been appointed the manager of the Cross Sells team at Capital One (NYSE: COF). You and your team are responsible for evaluating opportunities to market non-credit card products to our credit card customers. This usually involves products from outside vendors that we can sell to 
our customers at a premium.
One potential cross-sell opportunity that is sitting on your desk right now is the Prepaid Phone Card—a piece of plastic you can use to pay for long distance telephone calls. Users of the card would call an 800 number, enter the card’s PIN, and then enter the destination telephone number. The outside vendor tracks card usage and minutes remaining. Your responsibility is to determine if the product will be profitable for Capital One and how to maximize this profit.
First, take a few moments to determine what are the most important factors that will help you decide to accept or reject the Phone Card cross-sell.
Questions to Consider:
Obviously if a bank wants to sell other non-credit card related products to its credit card customers, they need to offer something that the customer wants or is looking for. Why not throw out a survey to customers and see what they like. Then negotiate with various vendors to get the products or services at a better rate to offer them. If not, customers are going to find you very annoying.
Lauren