Dear Mr Hurley, Mr Nicol and Mr Kerr,

I would like to thank you for the invitation to the meeting that took place yesterday the 24 of September. I was present at the meeting and was very impressed by the format. I enjoyed the fact that you three were open, transparent and honest about the current situation. I’m hoping that the SMB reps will continue to be encouraged to these periodic meetings.

You dont know me by name but I’m the person that asked the question regarding the outsourcing of customer service. I feel as though one of my questions might not have been expressed properly. I was not questioning whether the outsourcing of customer service and repair teams was going to continue but rather if an analysis of the cost of the outsourcing is underway. I was trying to tie my question with Mr Hurley’s statement that cost reduction has a downside and that we need balance between costs and customer service. This led me to ponder about how Bell SMB could secure its future in today’s competitive and economic climate. What came to mind is how in the past years we have steered away from giving the best possible customer service in order to increase revenues. I also thought about the impact of this change for our customers. This is just an idea but hopefully in this email the management team will see a potential in the idea. What would be considered an even bigger triumph would be if this email would make the management team appreciate that the lower level workers can also bring forward ideas and solutions that can help the team achieve its common goals.

As Mr Hurley said yesterday outsourcing has proven itself as a cost effective solution. However many clients are unhappy about the customer service they are receiving from our “vendors”. A big complaint our customers have is the lack of ONE stop problem solving. If a client has a problem he is usually transferred from one department to another and so on and so fourth mainly because of the lack of knowledgeable “vendor” reps or because of very aggressive sales objectives. Much of the dissatisfaction comes from misdirected transfers and the waste of time the client endures while being transferred. With this in mind, I think it could be to our advantage to look into transforming the SMB call centre under Sonja into a service call centre. This would mean that if a client has a problem that our “vendors” cannot solve, he would be transferred here. Regardless what the problem is our contact centre could take the necessary time to try to resolve it. This is already what we are trying to do however we are discouraged from doing so. Our revenue objective, time per call objectives, IHVA & VAS objectives prohibits us from taking the necessary time to solve the client’s problems. You have access to a great call centre and my colleagues have extensive experience in trouble shooting, dealing with other departments and disarming frustrated clients. Why not use this experience to create a service only queue? Revenue could be assured by the “vendors”. The most basic request would also be assured by our “vendors”. We would still keep control of the New-In by keeping the New-In queue and the service queue could also take care of all the retention needs. Many other Teleco. I have dealt with in the pass they have these Senior Reps that deal with complaints, retention, trouble shooting and all the problems that are deemed too complicated for first level reps.

I think you will agree that the bottom line is that kind of revamp of the call center under Sonja could be beneficial by reducing the number of clients that switch to our competitors, by ensuring a customer service of superior quality and by dedicating resources to there specific fields. I expect that there might be huge obstacles and barriers to actually implement this solution and I do not expect this “Senior rep queue” to come to life tomorrow. But as I stated before I hope that in the least this email will persuade you that it could be advantageous to the team get the feedback, opinion and to brainstorm with the front representative as they are the one who are in direct contact with the clients. This is something that is lacking at this time.

Regards,

Tarek

Dear Mr Hurley, Mr Nicol and Mr Kerr,

I would like to thank you for inviting me to the meeting that took place yesterday September 24th 2009. I was present at the meeting and was very impressed by the format. I enjoyed the fact that you were all very open, transparent and honest about the current situation. I’m hoping that the SMB reps will continue to be encouraged to attend these periodic meetings.

You dont know me by name but I am the person who asked the question regarding the outsourcing of customer service. I feel as though one of my questions might not have been expressed properly. I was not questioning whether the outsourcing of customer service and repair teams was going to continue but rather if an analysis of the cost of the outsourcing is underway. I was trying to tie my question with Mr Hurley’s statement that cost reduction has a downside and that we need balance between costs and customer service. This led me to ponder about how Bell SMB could secure its future in today’s competitive and economic climate. What came to mind is how in the past years we have steered away from giving the best possible customer service in order to increase revenues. I also taught about the impact of this change for our customers. This is just an idea but hopefully in this email the management team will see a potential in the idea. What would be considered an even bigger triumph would be if this email would make the management team appreciate that the lower level workers can also bring forward ideas and solutions that can help the team achieve its common goals.

As Mr Hurley said yesterday outsourcing has proven itself as a cost effective solution. However many clients are unhappy about the customer service they are receiving from our “vendors”. A big complaint our customers have is the lack of ONE stop problem solving. If a client has a problem he is usually transferred from one department to another and so on and so fourth mainly because of the lack of knowledgeable “vendor” reps or because of very aggressive sales objectives. Much of the dissatisfaction comes from misdirected transfers and the waste of time the client endures while being transferred. With this in mind, I think it could be to our advantage to look into transforming the SMB call centre under Sonja into a service call centre. This would mean that if a client has a problem that our “vendors” cannot solve, he would be transferred here. Regardless what the problem is, our contact centre could take the necessary time to try to resolve it. This is already what we are trying to do however we are discouraged from doing so. Our revenue objective, time per call objectives, IHVA & VAS objectives prohibits us from taking the necessary time to solve the client’s problem. You have access to a great call centre and my colleagues have extensive experience in trouble shooting, dealing with other departments and disarming frustrated clients. Why not use this experience to create a service only queue? Revenue could be assured by the “vendors”. The most basic request would also be assured by our “vendors”. We would still keep control of the New-In by keeping the New-In queue and the service queue could also take care of all the retention needs. Many other Teleco. I have dealt with in the past have these Senior Reps that deal with complaints, retention, trouble shooting and all the problems that are deemed too complicated for first level reps.

I think you will agree that revamping the call center under Sonja could be beneficial by reducing the number of clients that switch to our competitors, by ensuring a customer service of superior quality and by dedicating resources to there specific fields. I expect that there might be huge obstacles and barriers to actually implement this solution and I do not expect this “Senior rep queue” to come to life tomorrow. But as I stated previously, I hope that in the least this email will persuade you that it could be advantageous to the team to get feedback, opinion and to brainstorm with the front representative as they are the one who are in direct contact with the clients. This is something that is lacking at this time.

Regards,