Everything Everywhere, the company formed by the merger of Orange and T-Mobile have revealed a complete revamp of their customer service division with what they claim is a revolutionary change in the way their service is delivered.
Everything Everywhere are to invest £50 million on stores, customer facing staff and contact centres in 2012 resulting in a massive overhaul of their service approach meaning that it will now be handset and operating system based rather than the current model which is service based.
Everything Everywhere say
For the first time in the UK, customers will now be able to access highly trained specialist agents who are experts on specific devices and related operating systems, giving customers unrivalled service for their Apple iOS, BlackBerry, Android and Windows phones.
The unprecedented smartphone growth the UK has experienced means that customers are using devices in a completely different way and this new service approach is designed to meet customers’ changing needs. Orange and T-Mobile staff will become experts in all aspects of customers’ digital lives, advising them on device, technology and account specific needs without having to transfer them between departments, which has been the traditional approach to telecommunications customer service. This is a fundamental shift in how the Orange and T-Mobile service experience is delivered and is central to Everything Everywhere’s plan to be the UK’s number one for customer loyalty.
The new service approach is actively rolling out across the organisation following successful trials which showed dramatic improvements in the resolution of issues at first point of contact, as well as a double digit increases in Net Promoter Scores – a key measure of customer service.
Another of the company’s biggest areas of investment is also in its people with the launch of a development academy across Service which is focussed on creating loyalty and experts with excellent communication and engagement skills. Up to 7,000 people in customer services will receive training in operating systems and in time employees will also receive an accreditation in the area they specialise in. This will be extended to Retail and Online channels later in the year covering all 12,000 employees who aim to deliver outstanding service to our customers through all customer touch points.
Everything Everywhere is also significantly investing in its retail stores through refreshing and modernising its entire high street estate. The refresh and training in stores complements the company’s previous announcement that it will be selling both Orange and T-Mobile products across all of its stores. T-Mobile prepay dongles were first sold in Orange stores earlier this year and Orange Broadband will be sold in T-Mobile stores from this week.
This move is surely driven by the fact that Orange has the dubious honour of being the most complained about UK mobile network according to Ofcom, the uk’s telecommunications regulator.
I absolutely don’t believe it for a minute. I have been with Orange since just after their launch 24 or more years ago. I have had my ups and downs with them, but the latest takes the biscuit. I have three phones on contract paying base £25+VAT (bills of around £120-£130) then out of contract for 7/8 months. Immediately after contracts finished, I contacted Orange a number of times and was told it would be reduced to rate similar to PAYG SIM as out of contract but never was! Orange chief exec office admit overcharging and their “estimate” was over £478 over a year. They have only offered 50% as they “have no record” of my contacts. While this goes on, they have cut all the phones TWICE. Time to move methinks.
So much for the “Service which is focussed on creating loyalty” mentioned above in their press statement above.
How does this comment relate to the above story about specific OS support? Orange used to be the tecchies network (c.late 90s, early 00s) and they did have experts on the bussiness side who pretty much knew how windows mobile worked becuse it was enterprise based. But since they got taken over by the France telecom these people were dispensed with to cut costs. If they can do what they say in the above it’s a positive move. However, I dont think they will fully carry out what they say.
everything everywhere EE mobile slow and bad customer service.
What happened to the “phone trainers”