BT: ‘Marketers need to have love affair with customer services’
Marketers need to embark on a “love affair” with their customer service counterparts or risk failing their brands, according to BT’s service chief.
Speaking at a London event hosted by the Direct Marketing Association, the telecom company’s managing director of retail customer service, Warren Buckley, says that marketers need to spend more time talking to and learning from the people that are the closest to customers.
He adds: “It is fundamental that they [marketers] have a dialogue with service teams. Customer service representatives are having hundreds of millions of conversations with account holders every year. The cost marketers would incur from obtaining that same level of insight would be huge.”
It is also essential, Buckley continued, that marketers work with services to determine a consistent tone of voice for marketing campaigns and responses to customer queries.
Buckley’s comments come as the company credited its customer service focus in helping to lift pre-tax profit by 18% to £628m in the three months to 31 December.
Ian Livingston, chief executive of BT, says: “Our investment to support our customers and improve our services has resulted in new contract wins around the world …”
