Feedback is really important to us, which is why we’re such big fans of Trustpilot. Whilst our Trustpilot score (currently 9.4/10) is outstanding, there is always room for improvement…
We decided to dig deep and look at the root cause of our complaints, which highlighted that customers were unhappy about costs that result from faults to either their line or equipment.
Our charges for a BT Openreach call-out are £145 + VAT per line and that can soon mount up! Whilst our charges have always been clearly explained in our T&C’s, no one is ever happy with that news. We wanted to do something to alleviate this, and to educate our customers in terms of their financial responsibility when things go wrong.
Our team like a challenge – so we decided to put it to them in what we dubbed our product ‘hack-a-thon’. We chose a handful of staff members, from various departments, with different levels of experience in order to give a real ‘back-to-the-floor’ viewpoint.
We tasked them with the following:
To create one or multiple products that would directly resolve the issue identified and improve the value of the service we offer to our customers.
They had to think with an ‘end-to-end’ viewpoint covering the whole process – from product conception to costs of delivery & sales, marketing, training, launch & beyond.
Our first ‘hack-a-thon’ group comprised of Emily (Sales), Leah (Customer Service), Akeem (Tech Support) & James (Marketing). We locked them in a room (ok we didn’t actually lock them in!) for 2.5 hours where they discussed, debated, planned and postulated product ideas & names until they agreed, resulting in two product offerings.
Our second group included Salma (Provisioning), Jamie (Tech Support Supervisor), Saiesh (Credit Control) & Emma (Customer Account Manager) and were given the same amount of time together and had a really productive session. They came up with a third suggestion, as well as pricing and draft terms for the previous group’s ideas.
This is the first time we’ve done something like this. Normally new products & services are driven from the top down, but it was great to see the team so passionate and being as though they have the closest contact with our customers, the resulting new products really have been designed to meet their exact needs.
So, what did the team come up with during their collaborative thinking sessions?.. Well here goes;
- No engineer call-out charges in the event of a fault
- Care Level 2 included
- Cost £1.49 per line
- Replacement router sent next day service in the event of a router fault
- Cost £3.50 per ADSL connection or £5.50 per FTTC connection
- All the benefits of Router Care, plus
- Special Faults Investigator Engineering included
- Care Level 3 included for the PSTN line the broadband is supplied on
- Sonar 24/7 monitoring
- Cost £10 per connection
We’re thrilled with what our team have come up with and hope you are too. In fact we’re so hyped about Line Care in particular, that we’re offering one month FREE to all customers in November. If anyone wants to opt out after that just let us know, but we think you’ll love it as much as we do!
As for Router Care or Complete Care, that’s a choice up to you. If you’re interested get in touch and we’ll happily talk you through it and/or get it set up for you.
And we’ll definitely be doing a hack-a-thon again in the future!!
