BT 2000 Annual Report Download - page 12

Annual report and Form 20-F 11
television material for broadcasting organisations and
closed circuit television operators, and audio and
videoconferencing.
Marketing and pricing
In a market as competitive as communications in the UK,
e¡ective marketing and pricing are very important. Over
the past year, our marketing focus has been on the launch
of new services and call stimulation, both internet and
voice, and we have introduced a number of competitive
pricing packages with calls costing from less than 1p per
minute at the weekends and weekday evenings.
Our website, www.bt.com, is increasingly being used
for marketing and promotion and as a channel for
customers to contact us. It has been the destination for
customers to register interest in forthcoming launches and
there has been a steady increase in the number of orders
made through www.bt.com, particularly for additional
exchange lines. We routinely receive over a million page
hits a day and on-line services such as Directory Enquiries
and View My Bill are very popular.
``Stay in touch'', our campaign based around the
character ET, is aimed at increasing call usage and the
penetration of internet and additional lines among
residential customers. ``Stay in touch'' has addressed many
communications issues during the year, including the
launch of a website speci¢cally designed for people who
work from home.
Thousands of people continue to come back to BT
every week and, at the beginning of the year, we removed
the reconnection charge. To some customers this was a
barrier to returning and, since the charge was removed, the
numbers of people reconnecting has continued to grow
steadily throughout the year.
For businesses, the ``You Can'' campaign has
highlighted the improved e¤ciency and e¡ectiveness that
communications makes possible and the role that BT can
play in helping customers to ¢nd solutions to their
communication needs.
Getoutthere.bt.com is a website dedicated to
showcasing new talent. BT created the site to give young
people the opportunity to express themselves through
uploading music and ¢lm and giving their work an
audience. Over 1,000 music tracks and ¢lms are already on
the site and several industry experts have given the site
their support.
BT has continued to reduce prices over the past year
and has also simpli¢ed its price structure, while at the
same time introducing new options to give customers
greater choice and control over how they are charged for
using our products and services. All of our residential
customers (except those on special schemes for low users)
now get a free call allowance included as part of the
standard rental. The new BT Together range of pricing
plans provides residential and smaller business customers
with competitive prices, inclusive call allowances and other
value features for a single monthly fee. BT has also
introduced the BT Commitment option to deliver
competitive prices to the corporate business customer.
Building on the momentum created by BT Together,
we announced the introduction of SurfTime in March.
SurfTime is expected to be available in June 2000. It is
planned for SurfTime to o¡er unlimited internet calls for
a ¢xed fee. SurfTime will mean that sur¢ng the internet at
peak times in the UK, already cheaper than in much of
Europe, can be cheaper than in the USA.
In March 2000, the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) researched the best
internet access prices o¡ered by the largest national
operator in each member country. The OECD reported that
the BT Internet package provided the cheapest o¡-peak
internet access amongst all 29 countries.
Customer satisfaction
BT's quality of service and our customers' satisfaction with
that service is extremely important to us. To ensure that
our customers are satis¢ed with our service and to
understand ways in which we can improve it, we talk to
thousands of our UK customers every month. We also run
an extensive market research programme to focus on wider
issues and to help us match our product and service
o¡erings to customer requirements.
During the 2000 ¢nancial year, specialist market
research agencies, acting on our behalf, talked to around
400,000 residential and business customers in the UK about
all aspects of the services we provide.
For the period October 1999 to March 2000, we
continued to score well in terms of overall customer
satisfaction with 83% of residential customers and 80% of
business customers giving BT a score of seven or more out
of ten for overall satisfaction with the company.
We also closely monitor our performance against a
number of key business measures, including providing
services in response to orders and remedying faults when
they appear. For business customers, almost 99% of orders
are completed by the agreed date, a level of performance
that remained consistent throughout the year. For
residential customers, the ¢gure is almost 98%.