BT Business to fulfil 'My Customer Promises' for enhanced customer care with BT SmartNumbers

London, England. September 2004

Teamphone today announced that BT Business has selected BT SmartNumbers as their platform on which to deliver Promise 2 of their “My Customer Promises” commitment. These commitments, which have been driven by Pierre Danon, Chief Executive of BT Retail have a number of significant implications both for major BT customers - and the requirements of BT sales and services team in order to support them.

The three promises that BT have made to their corporate customers are:

1. When you make an appointment with us, our engineers will do whatever they can to keep it.
2. When you call BT you'll always have the option to talk to a real person.
3. If the first person you call at BT can't help, they'll make it their top priority to find the person who can.

In order for Promise 2 to be delivered with cost and quality parameters, BT have selected the SmartNumbers Premier Customer Care solution to provide the highest quality of support and service to their customers. Within the Premier Customer Care solution, BT have been able to configure a service workflow for their telephony and messaging that covers retail sales and service specialists working from the office, home or remote locations.

Under the terms of this agreement with Teamphone, BT are providing over 1,000 sales and service specialist within BT Retail Business their own SmartNumbers account, with a predefined workflow and configuration that meets these customer promises.

Specifically, a customer now calling into BT will always have the option to speak to a person, and never be left in voice-mail or any automated voice-processing system. The caller will initially be put through to their BT account executive, and the SmartNumbers system will find this person whether they are working in the office, at home or on a mobile.

Should the BT account executive be on another call or in a meeting, the caller will have the option to speak to another member of the BT Retail team or an appointed delegate. Should the caller wish to leave a voice-message they will always have this option, or if they choose can always escalate the call to a customer-services representative for handling the service issue personally.

“This commitment to delivering an excellent customer experience is embedded in our strategy, in our measures and, above all, in what everyone in our organisation does every day. We know that we always need to do more and so have an ongoing drive to improve the way we work,” said Pierre Danon, CEO of BT Retail. “For us, quality is about delivering on our customer commitment while meeting the expectations of our employees and shareholders and playing our part in society as a whole.”

“With nearly 16,000 users of SmartNumbers in daily use, BT represent not only one of our most important channels, but one of our most significant customers,” said Geoffrey Paterson, CEO of Teamphone. “We're pleased to be working with BT Retail as they continue to set the benchmark for the highest quality of service across their major customers.”