BT 2007 Annual Report Download - page 7

6BT Group plc Annual Report & Form 20-F
KEEPING BT AHEAD OF THE GAME
BT is barely recognisable as the company it was five years ago.
Five years ago, we were primarily a UK lines and calls
business; today we are offering communications possibilities
that no one had even thought of back then to customers in
170 countries.
Possibilities that really do enable them to lead fuller lives and
run more profitable, innovative businesses.
In a very short time, we’ve gone from a narrowband,
fixed-line communications business, to a broadband company
harnessing the power of modern networks to help our customers
communicate anywhere, any time, using whatever devices they
happen to choose.
We’ve brought levels of choice and control to our customers
at home, at work, or out and about, that would once have
seemed impossible.
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Helping some of the
world’s largest companies
and organisations serve
their customers around
the world
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Who would have thought five years ago that BT would be
offering next-generation digital TV over broadband? Our BT
Vision service enables customers to watch what they want when
they want – without having to pay a monthly subscription.
Who would have thought that our customers would have
been benefiting from intelligent, seamless fixed/mobile
communications – like BT Fusion – at home, at work or in
between – chatting, swapping data, surfing the internet, doing
business?
Who would have thought that we would be helping some of
the world’s largest companies and organisations do business and
serve their customers around the world? Who would have
thought that geography would be history and time irrelevant?
But the thing about transformation, however radical and
however successful, is that there is no end point. No moment
at which you can sit back and think ‘job done’.
Even when we hit five million broadband connections in 2005
– more than a year ahead of schedule – there was no time to
take it easy. Today, that number is around 11 million and
climbing.
Our broadband success sums up the type of company BT
is becoming. A company that goes the extra mile, that rallies
behind its goals, that finds ways of meeting its customers’
needs – locally, nationally, internationally and globally.
FROM OUR TIME TO YOUR TIME
Nothing is more important than offering a great customer
experience first time, every time. It differentiates BT from the
competition; it is what the BT brand stands for.
Excellent customer service can only be delivered in ‘customer
time’ – the time that customers want. Quite rightly, customers
have no interest in, or patience with, ‘our time’ – the time it
takes our systems to make it happen.
Meeting customers’ needs in customer time is vital to proving
that we understand them, share their priorities and enthusiasms,
and really do put them first.
This type of ‘real-time’ customer experience is best delivered
by software. In the future, BT’s services will increasingly be
based on software – designed, delivered and updated remotely
by computers over broadband networks. These services will be
faster, more innovative, reliable and simpler to use – often
delivered by the push of a button.
These software-driven, networked IT services will be delivered
over our global twenty-first century broadband network.
We have set ourselves the target of becoming number one for
customer service within two years. To ensure that we continue
to think and act in customer time, two measures will apply
throughout the company and keep everyone focused. First, we
will measure how successfully we get things ‘right first time’.
Second, we will measure the improvements we make in the
‘cycle time’ – the time between the start and end of any
customer experience.
Overview
Chief Executive’s statement
BT has been capturing the imaginations of customers,
shareholders, analysts, suppliers and employees around the
world. We’ve done this by embracing change. By demonstrating
not only that we can thrive on it, but that we can help our
customers thrive on it as well. We’ve done it by proving that
when it comes to modern communications, the possibilities really
are endless. And we’ve done it by being a company that is driven
by its customers, shifting power and choice to them.
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