Virgin Media 2007 Annual Report Download - page 14

addressable market at year end. Brand consideration, which measures the likelihood of a person
considering to purchase a product from a particular company, also improved during 2007 for each of
our product lines.
Customer Service
A combination of in-house call centers and outsource partners handle our customer service calls.
Our in-house call centers are located in the U.K. in Bellshill (Scotland), Manchester, Sheffield, Dudley,
Nottingham, Glenrothes, Edinburgh, Gateshead, Teeside and Birmingham. As of December 31, 2007,
we employed approximately 3,200 call center staff. Our outsourced call centers in the U.K. are located
in Swansea, Liverpool and Airdrie (Scotland) and our outsourced call centers off-shore are located in
India in Delhi, Pune, Bangalore and Mumbai.
Business
ntl:Telewest Business retains its focus on meeting the communications requirements of U.K. public
and private sector organizations, and serving other telecommunications service providers. Through the
merger of NTL and Telewest in 2006 and the subsequent integration of their networks, we are now able
to leverage one of the most advanced national access networks in the U.K., delivering a wide portfolio
of voice and data products to business customers.
While the wider organization has rebranded to Virgin Media, ntl:Telewest Business has retained its
legacy brand. Being a business predicated upon customer relationships, a strong service proposition and
sector specific expertise, significant brand equity has been created in the market over the past 15 years
by each of the legacy businesses.
Sales Channels
The two sales organizations within the division, Business Markets and Service Provider, are
structured to support retail and wholesale customers, respectively.
•Business Markets—Private Sector: This sales channel focuses on meeting the telecommunications
needs of the U.K. private sector, from small businesses to large, national corporations.
Centralized telephone account managers serve small organizations (with approximately 5 to 99
employees), while regionally-located account, service and project management teams, supported
by pre-sales technical consultants, offer a differentiated service proposition to medium and large
U.K. businesses (with over 100 employees). We believe this local presence and the resulting level
of service is not available to this mid-market segment from any of our key competitors and the
benefits of this strategy are reflected by the long-term relationships held with many of our
customers.
•Business Markets—Public Sector: This sales channel focuses on specific vertical segments,
including local government, education, health and the emergency services. This meets a
requirement for sector-specific expertise where an understanding of the drivers and procurement
processes of publicly funded organizations is needed to enable the efficient deployment of
communications solutions. The inclusion of ntl:Telewest Business as an approved supplier under
various government framework agreements acts as both an enabler of growth in this sector and
an endorsement of our track-record, commitment and capability to offer value to publicly funded
organizations. An area of specific focus in 2007 and moving forward into 2008 lies within the
health sector and the deployment of Community of Interest Networks, or COINs. Given our
deep regional coverage, we believe we are ideally placed to deliver these multi-site solutions,
which enable health authorities to move to integrated network architectures, delivering cost
benefits.
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