Carphone Warehouse to champion its customer service with summer TV campaign

Carphone Warehouse’ marketing director Julian Diment has revealed that the phone retailer will launch a new television campaign in May, which will refresh the brand to consumers and talk up the investment the business has made to improve its customer service.

Pointing to newly published research – conducted by YouGov on behalf of Dixons Carphone – of 3,655 adults (aged between 25-44), which found that only 44% of consumers are motivated by low price, Diment insists the brand doesn’t need to rely on value-based marketing.

In comparison, 68% of respondents said they were more concerned about products and deals that were personalised.

“Ad spend will be significantly up this year and we think it is timely as customers, more than ever, are looking for personalised experiences and we need to remind them that’s where we excel,” said Diment, with Carphone Warehouse recently opening a £2.5m central training hub for colleagues in Birmingham.

It has also invested £20m intergrating Pin Point, an in-store customer experience that uses tools on tablets to assess customer needs to create the best mobile deal, across its estate.

Also launching in May will be a separate TV campaign for Dixons Carphone’s upcoming mobile phone network, which will launch in a few weeks under an altogether new brand.

And despite Dixons Carphone launching its first mobile network in a space with mature brands such as Vodafone and EE, Diment is convinced the offer, which will be launched in partnership with Three, will stand out.

“Flexibility will be at heart of our network,” he added. “We feel we are in a strong position to create a very different style of network. There are strong brands in this space but it is too early to say if they will all exist long term [with BT’s EE acquistion]. I think it is important that Carphone is around as we are the only independent phone store that can offer full comparisons.”

Over recent months, with BT’s recently announced acquisition of EE, the UK market is starting to become infiltrated by quad play – internet, landline and TV from a single provider – businesses, and Diment would not rule out Dixons Carphones one day exploring the option.

“Quad play is a great opportunity for our market but we will see. The exciting thing about our phone network is we will launch it across all of our retail brands [Currys, PC World and Carphone Warehouse]. We are seeing more customers connect on internet from TV to mobile so there is a real opportunity to offer more options with connectivity.”

Dixons Carphone is currently hosting a Google pop-up shop within its flagship Currys PC World, Oxford Street store, and Diment said the business will continue to explore options to work with third-parties on space.

Back in January, the firm said it expected pre-tax profits of up to £375m for the year ending May 1; above its previous forecast of £354m. Boosted by the success of its Black Friday promotions, Dixons Carphone posted a 7% increase in like-for-like sales in the nine weeks to January 3.

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