Vodafone 2009 Annual Report Download - page 22

20 Vodafone Group Plc Annual Report 2009
Vodafone endeavours to ensure that customers’ needs are at the core of all products and
services. Understanding these needs and continuing to serve them is key to Vodafone’s
customer strategy.
Customers, marketing and distribution
Marketing and brand
Vodafone has continued to build brand value by delivering a superior,
consistent and differentiated customer experience. Communication
activities are focused on delivering the promise of “helping customers
make the most of their time”. The Group’s vision is “to be the
communications leader in an increasingly connected world” expanding
the Group’s category from mobile only to total communications. To
enable the consistent use of the Vodafone brand in all customer
interactions, a set of detailed guidelines has been developed in areas
such as advertising, retail, online and merchandising.
Vodafone regularly conducts brand health tracking, which is designed
to measure the brand performance against a number of key metrics
and generate insights to assist the management of the Vodafone
brand across all Vodafone branded operating companies. An external
accredited and independent market research organisation provides
global coordination of the methodology, reporting and analysis.
Vodafone’s global sponsorship strategy has delivered a strong set of
results across all Vodafone markets, with central sponsorship
agreements such as the title sponsorship of the Vodafone McLaren
Mercedes F1 team. The winning performance of the Vodafone
McLaren Mercedes F1 team during the 2008 season enabled Vodafone
to maintain a dominant presence in one of the world’s most popular
sporting events. Vodafone successfully integrated the sponsorship
into a wide variety of business activities including communications,
events, content and acquisition and retention promotions.
Distribution
Vodafone directly owns and manages over 1,800 stores selling
services to customers and providing customer support. The store
footprint is constantly reviewed in response to market conditions. The
Group also has 5,200 Vodafone branded stores, which sell Vodafone
products and services exclusively through franchise and exclusive
dealer arrangements. Additionally, in most operating companies, sales
forces are in place to sell directly to business customers. The internet
is increasingly a key channel to promote and sell Vodafone’s products
and services and to provide customers with an easy, user friendly and
accessible way to manage their services and access support, whilst
reducing costs for the Group.
The extent of indirect distribution varies between markets but may
include using third party service providers, independent dealers,
distributors and retailers. The Group hosts MVNOs in a number of
markets, selling access to the Vodafone network at a wholesale level.
Where appropriate, Vodafone seeks to enter mutually profitable
relationships with MVNO partners as an additional route to market.
Customers
Vodafone has 302.6 million proportionate mobile customers across
the globe. The Group seeks to use its understanding of customers to
deliver relevance and value and communicate on an individual,
household, community or business level. In delivering solutions that
meet customers’ changing needs in a manner that is easy to access
and is available when required, Vodafone aims to build a longer and
deeper customer relationship.
Vodafone continues to use a customer measurement system called
“customer delight” to monitor and drive customer satisfaction in
the Group’s controlled markets at a local and global level. This is a
proprietary diagnostic system which tracks customer satisfaction
across all points of interaction with Vodafone and identifies the drivers
of customer delight and their relative impact. This information is used
to identify any areas for improvement and focus.
Customer segmentation
Customer segments are targeted through many different tariffs and
propositions, which are adapted for any localised customer
preferences and needs. These often bundle together voice, messaging,
data and, increasingly, fixed line services.
Consumer
Customers are typically classified as prepaid or contract customers.
Prepaid customers pay in advance and are generally not bound to
minimum contractual commitments, while contract customers
usually sign up for a predetermined length of time and are invoiced for
their services, typically on a monthly basis. Increasingly, Vodafone
offers SIM only tariffs allowing customers to benef it from the Vodafone
network whilst keeping their existing handset.
Enterprise
The Group continues to grow usage and penetration across all
business segments. VGE manages the Group’s relationship with
Vodafone’s 270 largest multinational corporate customers. VGE
simplifies the provision of fixed, mobile and broadband services for
MNCs who need a single operational and commercial relationship with
Vodafone worldwide. It provides a range of managed services such as
central ordering, customer self-serve web portals, telecommunications
expense management tools and device management coupled with a
single contract and guaranteed service level agreements.
The Group continues to expand its portfolio of innovative solutions
offered to small office home office (‘SoHo’), SME and corporate
customers. Increasingly these combine fixed and mobile voice and
data services integrated with productivity tools.
72.9
Customer delight index
(2008: 73.1, 2007: 70.6)
9th
in global BrandZ ranking
Up from 11th in 2008