O2 today announced it would be investing an additional £7m into its partner channel in a move to consolidate its position in the SME market. The move follows a similar initiative at the end of 2009, which has helped drive success throughout the year with its partners.
The announcement, at the recent O2 Partner Conference, follows a hugely successful year for O2’s partners, which has seen them consistently perform above and beyond the market. The investment will be offered across systems and aimed at providing the Partner Channel with the ability to offer a world class level of service to customers, with the remainder on incremental investment for delivering an even better customer experience.
Maggie Kennedy, Head of Partners at O2, said: ‘Our Channel Partners have had a fantastic year and are critical to the success of O2. This additional investment we are announcing will enable them to continue to bring high value, low churn business to O2. We have always invested a lot in supporting the partner channel and have seen such great results in 2010.’
The conference took a look back at the great performance of the channel partners throughout 2010 and looked forward to 2011. There was recognition for some outstanding performances from partners including many with less than 5 per cent rolling churn and industry leading customer satisfaction scores. In addition, the partner of the year awards were also announced. The winners were:
- Centre of Excellence Partner of the Year ‘ Aerial Telephones
- Data Centre of Excellence Partner of the Year ‘ Livvys
- Distributor Centre of Excellence Partner of the Year ‘ Fone Logistics (Anglia Telecom)
- Customer Service Partner of the year ‘ Vivio
Kennedy continued: ‘I congratulate the Partners of the Year for 2010 and look forward to continued growth in 2011. There can be no doubt that this year our partners have delivered above and beyond. I look forward to continuing that trend in the year ahead.’
O2 also shared its plans for 2011 including their network investment plans to ensure customers continue enjoy using their services effectively.
Ben Dowd, O2 Business Sales Director, said: ‘At O2 we are obsessive about delivering the best customer experience of any industry and our partners are a key element in helping us achieve that. We recognise that we need to enable and support our partners in doing this and this is why we are investing so heavily in them. Key to our success has been a constant dialogue with partners where we have listened to their feedback. This has enabled us to have a joined up approach to this and we continue to learn from the best practise across all partners.’
Commenting on the announcement of the investment and plans for the channel next year Paul Davis, Managing Director for Aerial Telephones, said: ‘The conference was a great opportunity to engage with senior stakeholders of O2 and have an early view of O2’s plans for 2011. As we go into 2011 planning for our business it is vital that these events give us the insight needed.’
James Wright, Managing Director of Vivio, added: ‘It is very important to come to O2 events and it’s great to see the network plans for 2011 and how they can work with my business. It’s important to have access to Senior Management to feedback and the SME Proposition Council is great to give partners an opportunity to provide insight on developments.’
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