Customer satisfaction is at the heart of BT’s strategy and is a part of everything we do. We’re committed to listening to our customers, both through our millions of day-to-day interactions with them and through one of the largest customer research programmes in the UK.

More than 2,000 residential customers and a similar number of our smaller business customers every month get the chance to tell us what they think of us, and we have a monthly tracking survey of our major corporate customers.

Listening to our customers has helped us understand what they want from us. And what they want from us couldn’t be clearer:

• we must be easy to contact
  
  
• we must keep them informed (we shouldn’t need to be chased)
  
  
• we must take ownership of their issues and champion their cause
  
  
• we must live up to the commitments we make to them. It’s as simple - and as tough - as that.

Customers have the right to expect the same levels of service from all parts of BT; it’s our job to deal with issues of organisation and overlap, not theirs. We can only achieve this by ensuring that all parts of BT are aligned to meet customer requirements.

We see excellent service as a chance to get on the front foot with our customers. For example, we call our HomeMover package customers two days in advance of their move, and on the day itself, to make sure everything’s OK.

We don’t always get it right, but we’re determined to reduce to a minimum the number of times we get it wrong. And that’s why BT has set itself a customer service challenge to reduce customer dissatisfaction levels by 25% every year.

During the year, we beat that target by delivering a 37% reduction in customer dissatisfaction with BT overall. All areas of the business improved satisfaction levels, with particularly significant improvements among our international and wholesale customers. And, in most areas of business, satisfaction with BT is well ahead of satisfaction with our competitors.