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Home > News Extra> Retail
Responding to customers’ needs
Monday September 22nd 2008. Posted: 09:45
Hardly a day seems to go by without the words economic slowdown and credit crunch dominating the headlines. So it’s no wonder BT customers will be searching for the best deal and focusing even more on value for money.
This challenging backdrop also opens up a great opportunity for BT to work with its customers - highlighting the value of its products and services, providing innovative and cost-effective solutions, and always wowing BT customers to ensure they never want to leave. This highlights just how important being number one for customer service is both to BT and to its customers. So how is BT Retail responding to the situation and what action is being taken to help customers at this time to ensure the company stays one step ahead of the competition? We find out from BT Retail’s senior team. BT Retail chief executive officer Gavin Patterson said: “It’s critical that we position our business to be as responsive as possible to the needs of our customers - should their situation change due to the economic slowdown. “We also need to ensure that our propositions make our value absolutely clear - so that we are the obvious supplier of choice should things get tight. This is going to be a key area for us. “We need to think about our propositions, and look at how we can help customers manage their cash and their expenses through this period because it’s a time when customers will want to be sure they’re getting quality and value for every penny they spend.” Consumer managing director John Petter agreed: “There is no doubt that some customers are feeling the pinch. This is most obvious in homeowner volumes, which are down between 30 per cent and 40 per cent. “Also the rate of house formation seems to have plummeted. This means that fewer phone lines overall are being installed. “The good news is that customers are most likely to query or reconsider their choice of provider when moving house - so we may see a little less churn. But actually BT is quite well positioned to weather the storm. Home entertainment businesses traditionally suffer less during hard times than cinemas, restaurants and pubs. Broadband for many people these days is an essential for modern life.” In terms of what Consumer is doing to help customers, John highlighted the launch of BT Basic in partnership with the Department of Work and Pensions. “It’s a brilliant new low price line rental, targeted at those on low incomes and in receipt of state benefits,” he said. “We are also launching a new mobile call saver package for our PSTN customers. Customers tell us they worry most about calls to mobiles so we are launching a tariff cheaper than the standard mobile to mobile prepay rates of any of the big mobile companies. So it will be cheaper to call a mobile from a BT landline than from a mobile.” In addition, BT Broadband Anywhere is available for just £5 on top of your regular broadband subscription, and it gives you 50 minutes and 50 texts, plus a device worth £150 and high speed surfing and e-mail. John added: “We are enhancing our monthly payment plan (MPP) to make it even easier to help customers budget.” Strategy, convergence and products (SC&P) managing director Steve Andrews said: "BT customers will be looking to us to show how they can get value for money. Working with other business units, we must create the right value for money propositions. For example, offering more than our competitors, not necessarily on price, but the best." BT Retail’s chief financial officer Tony Chanmugam agreed: “In this climate, our customers will focus even more on value for money and price. Consequently across BT Retail we need to ensure that we highlight the value of our propositions and, where appropriate, that our pricing is competitive.” BT Business managing director Bill Murphy added: “We are in one of the most challenging economic environments I have seen in 25 years of working. “It’s tough and challenging but as a result of all of this uncertainty there is a great deal of opportunity. We just have to work very hard - that means more visits, calls, proposals out the door and better teamwork. “Marketing, sales and service have to collaborate more so than ever before and we have to engage customers at a level and frequency that we have never achieved before. If we don’t do it our competitors will eat our lunch!”
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Last updated:
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