Revenue opportunity for operators in customer care
Orange is making €200 million revenue annually from the three million customers it has signed up to its Orange Care service, Olaf Swantee, Senior VP, France Telecom said.
The service provides a combined “lifecycle” customer care service across user support issues, contacts and data transfer and back up, as well as insurance.
Swantee said that the success of the Care approach shows that operators can turn what has previously been a cost base, customer care, into a revenue centre.
“We have 90,000 people working in our call centre and retail distribution outlets and most of these people are quite reactive today. But they could bring a huge difference to the new market,” Swantee said.
With 75% of the user base still to access the mobile internet, Swantee said there is a big demand for customer care services to help users along they way. Even 15-20% of people that buy and iPhone request a customer care starter pack, he said, adding that this is for a device that is recognised as being user friendly.
The issue for operators in smartphone customer care has been that support calls tend to last longer, and require more technical solutions -costing the oeprator. But Swantee said that using the retail channel, as well as remote access solutions, could turn this into a “big revenue stream.”
He also said that the device manufacturers were happy to see Orange take the lead in customer care, and Nokia had in fact worked with Orange to set up its care service.