WCA Winner's Report: Virtela - Best Customer Care 2013

In the build up to the opening of this year's World Communication Awards. We've been speaking to last year's winners to get the inside track about their winning entry. Follow our series of 'Winner's Reports' over the next few weeks.

First up; Virtela - Best Customer Care 2013.

Please summarise your winning entry.

Virtela, the leading global cloud networking company, offers an extensive suite of services – including managed networks, security, application acceleration, mobile device management and IT infrastructure management. These managed services are enabled by Virtela’s multi-carrier overlay network and Enterprise Services Cloud (ESC) platform, with Local Cloud Centers (LCCs) around the world that dynamically deliver services closest to enterprise end-users for the highest performance and lowest cost of ownership.

As a company that is driving cloud IT innovation, Virtela’s number one priority has always been, and will continue to be, its customers, which is why this past year, it created the Customer Excellence Program, bolstering its already industry-leading Customer Care Program. Based on customer and internal feedback loops and policing the processes and systems, this new quality assurance program allows Virtela to accelerate continuous improvements in how it delivers customer care.

Year after year, Virtela’s support team creates new standards for itself as well as the industry. And, each year, Virtela dramatically outperforms these service guarantees, pushing the envelope for customer care and service excellence. For example, in 2012, Virtela's support team improved the speed to answer customer calls by nearly 50 percent, answering first calls within an average of 6.4 seconds, down from 12 seconds in 2011. This is just one of many dramatic improvements Virtela has made in the past year.

Virtela has been recognized globally for its proactive Customer Care Program, which is driven by its world-class support team, who customers view as an extension of their own IT team.

How do you feel your product or service differentiates from its competitors?

Virtela maintains three Global Operations Centers staffed around the clock with IT experts who proactively monitor, inspect, detect and analyze customer networks and IT infrastructure to ensure global customers experience the highest levels of uptime.  Virtela asserts no other service provider will be as highly responsive to customers’ needs - be it service quotes, service delivery, change requests, billing, or service issues. For Virtela, it doesn't matter who, what, when, where or why there's an issue, the support team goes the extra mile to resolve it, and fast. In fact, 95 percent of customer survey respondents in 2012 said they were highly satisfied or satisfied with Virtela's resolution of their issues.

What further innovations do you see in the area of your entry in 2014 and beyond?


Virtela is committed to continuous improvement and innovation in customer care. In 2014, Virtela will challenge itself to continue to outperform its already industry-leading metrics -- such as 99% of trouble tickets opened proactively, 99% of issues resolved at first call, and 95% of potential issues identified and resolved before they impact network health -- through additional automation, predictive analytics technologies, and mobility features for further enhancement of proactive support.

Want to enter the awards this year? Entries open on May 7th. Keep an eye on the website for further information - www.worldcommsawards.com

Consistency is a great message for customer care #CEM

What does it take to provide great customer care? The recipe isn't necessarily clear as Wayne Schutte, of EE made clear in his presentation title at the recent Total Telecom Customer Experience Summit: "Everyone’s talking about it... but what actually is CEM?", but for him it came down to an aeroplane analogy with the warning of ″Don't f___ up the landing″.

But six companies that clearly do know a thing of two about customer care battled it out at this years World Communication Awards, with a shortlist in this competitive category comprising Bite Lietuva, Roshan, Optimus, Orange Business Services, Tata Communications and Turkcell.

However the final message could be that consistency is what counts. The award for Best Customer Care went to Roshan from Afghanistan, the very same Roshan who scooped Best Customer Service Initiative back in June at the 2012 Asia Communication Awards!



Entries are open for the 2013 Asia Communication Awards, so if you think you can do better, it's time to start working on your entry!

What is #CEM - five practitoners you need to hear

Customer experience management #CEM is widely touted as the only remaining point of differentiation for communication service providers. Whether or not this is true, it is important enough for Total Telecom to put on a dedicated Customer Experience Summit, in London, on the 14 November.

A fantastic line up of operators, analysts and solution providers includes:

• Mr Wayne Schutte: Director, Customer Experience, EE
• Mr Madhusudhan Mysore: Chief Network Officer, Network & Service Operations SS - Tata Communications
• Mr Graham Webster: Director, Customer Experience, Telefónica Europe
• Mr Ahmad Kamal: Chief Officer Customer Services Operations - Ufone GSM
• Ms Janet Watkin: Founder, Ocean82

Who are they, and what are they talking about:

Mr Wayne Schutte: Director, Customer Experience, EE
Wayne Schutte joined Everything Everywhere in 2011 as part of the contact centre operations leadership team for the Orange and T-Mobile brands. In September he was appointed as the Director of Customer Experience team, which brings together expertise on customer insight, loyalty, excellence and innovation for all customer channels.
@TTSummit: Everyone’s talking about it... but what actually is CEM?

Mr Madhusudhan Mysore: Chief Network Officer, Network & Service Operations SS - Tata Communications
Madhusudhan leads CSO (Customer and services Operations group), for Tata Communications. His key focus at Tata Communications is to enhance the service capabilities and customer facing activities across the globe. He is responsible for supporting Global Carrier (Voice and Data) & Enterprise Services (Network and Managed) Operations
@TTSummit: Effective customer experience management strategies to retain enterprise customers

Mr Graham Webster: Director, Customer Experience, Telefónica Europe
Graham is responsible for leading the Customer Experience activity for Telefonica Europe as Telefonica continues to increase its focus on its customers. In 2011 he led the development of the Social Media Strategy for Telefonica Europe.
@TTSummit: Happy customers – using customer experience as a point of differentiation and to improve loyalty

Mr Ahmad Kamal: Chief Officer Customer Services Operations - Ufone GSM
Ahmad Kamal is currently leading the Customer Services division at Ufone in Pakistan. He possesses a rich and diversified experience spanning over 23 years in the Telecommunication Industry. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of Customer Experience management in Pakistan being associated with the industry since 1989.
@TTSummit: Understanding your market to offer a great customer experience

Ms Janet Watkin: Founder, Ocean82
Janet successfully developed and launched the OCEAN (Outstanding Customer Experience Analysis & News) programme for evaluating user perceptions of service providers. Janet looks to find root cause for dissatisfaction and offers consultancy to clients on achieving world class standards of service aligned with customer priorities.
@TTSummit: Panel discussion: Effective customer experience management strategies to retain enterprise customers

To hear more on this subject, come along to the inaugural Total Telecom Customer Experience Summit on the 14 November 2012.

For sponsorship opportunities contact
Oliver Chandler on +44 (0)20 7608 7041

It's a wrap! Awards and Conference complete

The 13th annual World Communication Awards and first ever Total Telecom World conference are over for another year, so time to take a deep breath and relax. No chance, it's time to start working on Total Telecom Wireless World for June 2012!


Eighteen categories were awarded, with the highlights being the emergence of UPC Austria as the winner in two categories, Team of the Year and Best Customer Care, and the naming of Randall L. Stephenson of AT&T as CEO of the Year. Randall unfortunately was unable to make the awards, but did send us personal video message.

There is great press coverage of the awards this year, in particular the BBC were very quick off the mark to cover BT's win of Project of the Year for Superfast Cornwall.




Almost 500 people attended this years awards dinner at the London Hilton on Park Lane where Andrew Neil demonstrated just what makes him such a popular commentator and presenter with his unique blend of topical, humourous, and the slightly cutting - especially if you happen to work for Orange.  You can view all the winners and highly commended companies on the website at www.worldcommsawards.com 


Many of those who attended the awards also participated in the inaugural Total Telecom World conference where they were moved and inspired by Karim Khoja's story of telecoms in Afghanistan, as well as getting great insight from Ed Richards, CEO of Ofcom and the opportunity to hear first hand from Nigel Stagg, the new CEO of BT Wholesale in his first conference presentation.


Panel discussions in particular were lively with candid views expressed by the likes of Jeremy Boardman of Rothschild (Any new UK fibre investors would be 'certifiable'), whilst David Haigh of Brand Finance was described by one participant as making the other panellists 'squirm'!


An eventful two days, when all's said and done...