Customer experience’ is the main differentiator that organisations will succeed or fall by in coming years, that is the view of many market analysts. It is also one that BT Wholesale shares and is actively embracing.

So what is the company doing to improve services for its own customers so that they too can gain that vital and distinctive edge?

Between The Lines calls on Mick Wayman, Managing Director of BT Wholesale Customer Service, to find out what the priorities have been over the past 12 months, where there has been measurable progress so far – and what happens next?

HOW FAR HAVE WE TRAVELLED?

Look back to the BT Wholesale of a year ago and there were clearly a number of customer service challenges – as Mick Wayman explains: "We had new products to bring to market such as ‘Broadband Max’. We were migrating from old processes to new processes in the supply chain. We also had the creation of Openreach. All these were important dynamics that were conspiring collectively to put a lot of pressure on certain areas of our service delivery."

Finding the solutions came not from addressing the improvement needs of each element individually but from taking a far more holistic approach – that plus committing to ‘right first time’ at every point. Mick says: "We recognised that the supply chain has a number of working parts. We have our own customer service domain as do our customers and our suppliers. But in fact, it’s really the experience of the end-customer that’s the important factor.

So we’ve developed our initiatives of the past 12 months by taking an end-to-end perspective, thinking how can we best work with our customers to understand their processes and so improve the experience of their customers? In this way, when the work flows from our customers to us, we go into action on the basis of it’s the right work, at the right time and with the right outcome."

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: MUCH MORE THAN SERVICE

For BT Wholesale this new way of thinking goes beyond sets of products and commitments. It is about improving every touch for the customer: from contact strategies and product development through to day-to-day account management and the choice of information channels: even to the accuracy of billing and the ease of bill reconciliation. Mick continues: "Service is the golden thread that stitches it all together but ‘service’ in isolation isn’t the customer experience. It has to be all these things combined."

As one example of the progress made in the new all-inclusive approach Mick cites Broadband diagnostics: "The real test of a service organisation is when things go wrong. We handle about 20,000 Broadband fault reports a week. When you get a fault, what’s important is to resolve it right first time and in the shortest possible cycle time. Therefore the interaction with our customers is understanding why those faults get created in the first place and their role and our role in helping their end-customer to get service back."

SMARTER DIAGNOSIS: BETTER INFORMATION

BT Wholesale is investing in more diagnostics tools and techniques for customers’ use as one practical solution here. Mick continues: "It means they have a better chance of identifying the cause of the problem at the first point of contact. That’s a real big move which is good for them, good for us and good for the end-customer – and it potentially delivers a double benefit: performance improves and costs reduce as a consequence of lower fault rates"

Another advance lies in improvements in the information flow. Experience has shown that a critical element in maintaining a high quality of customer experience is keeping the customer informed. In Mick’s view, it is one of the main differences between success and failure – even if there is bad news to tell. He explains: "We’re putting a lot of effort and work into making a promise to the customer that’s well planned. If things start to go wrong, then it’s vital that we communicate early. The worst thing in the world is that the end-customer has an expectation that isn’t met. The result is a very unhappy customer – and then everyone in the satisfaction chain suffers."

SERVICE IS STILL TOP OF THE AGENDA

The importance of getting the quality of service right cannot be underestimated. It underlies, informs and influences the whole of the customer/supplier relationship. Mick says: "If service is poor, then it swamps everything else. It becomes the No. 1 agenda item so you don’t get to talk about or sell anything else."