Staff Reporter

Vodafones existing business and indirect sales teams are also being merged into Vodafone Business Services which will target small businesses.

Customer service operations in Newark and Banbury could absorb some of the redundant sales staff Vodafone director of corporate and business sales Ken McGeorge told Mobile News.

From the minute we acquired Project Telecom and Corporate 4U we warned that there would be a combining of the sales force and a reduction in staff numbers he said.

Having merged these sales teams together there are a significant number of people surplus to requirements in the new organisation. Eighty jobs are at risk.

McGeorge added:

We are selecting people to stay based on their performance. The market has evolved away from acquisition. We need a greater ratio of account managers to sales staff.

McGeorge said a new sales director will be appointed to look after Vodafone Business Services during November/December.

Project Telecom was acquired in August and Vodafone then made no bones about the fact that jobs would have to go.

Singlepoint was snapped up a few months later in a record-breaking 4065 million acquisition from Caudwell Group.

The figures related to complaints received by Oftel between April and September this year.

The regulator received 552 complaints about 3s service but was unable to compare the network with other operators because it was unable to obtain information about 3s customer base.

But considering 3 is believed to have around 200000 customers it would have received around 2.7 complaints per 1000 customers.

T-Mobile Orange and O2 each received 0.2 complaints per 1000 while Vodafone received 0.1 complaints per customer.

Vodafones achievement is even more impressive considering the former Cellular Operations division received 1.4 complaints per 1000 customers while another recent Vodafone acquisition former Caudwell reseller 4U also fared poorly.

A spokesperson for 3 said:

Oftels figures are misleading. 3 is the first 3G offering in the country working with cutting-edge technology and offering a unique service. It is misleading to directly compare us against companies that are working on technology that has been around for 10 years.

Mobile-related complaints to Oftel were up 10 per cent over the previous period with 19950 for the past six months as compared to 18000 for the previous six months.

The top three complaints received by Oftel included companies ignoring customers complaints issues regarding operators tariffs and options packages and problems with handsets.

Meanwhile 3s anticipated pre-pay package might not now launch until the second quarter of next year because of the shortage of 3 kit said the network.

3 was planning a pre-pay launch in time for Christmas 2003 as it sought to use the festive period to help it meet its target of a million customers in its first year.

While Motorola has produced two new products in as many months 3 is still waiting for NECs clamshell 616 handset.

This is the smaller lighter replacement for the 606 so far 3s best selling handset. The 616 will be the closest 3 has come to offering a phone similar in size to a 2.5G phone.

But the 616 is still undergoing interoperability testing and is unlikely to appear before Christmas.

The v200 comes with an Arsenal welcome message10 Arsenal wallpapers and four Arsenal ringtones. Users also get MMS pictures from Arsenal home games.

The Samsung C100 comes with the Arsenal Pocket Soccer Java game. It also has eight polyphonic ringtones an animated Arsenal welcome and a choice of eight Arsenal wallpapers.

Both handsets are available from O2 outlets and the Arsenal club shop. The V200 costs 279.99 on pre-pay while the C100 is 99.99.

Spokesman Simon Robinson said the SX1 would not do particularly well over the festive period anyway.

The Christmas market is about relatively cheap handsets that people buy as gifts. We are concentrating on the MC60 which has been selling exceptionally well already. Its one of the few sub- 100 camera phones.

With the SX1 we wanted to be sure that everything was working perfectly. We have seen other manufacturers rush to keep to deadlines and deliver products full of bugs. We didnt want that to happen with the SX1.

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At 30000 feet above the Atlantic Sir Richard Branson confirmed that it was not beyond the realm of possibility that Virgin Mobile would seek another host network if its long-running legal dispute with T-Mobile was not eventually resolved.

And while Virgin Mobile chief executive Tom Alexander agreed it could be a logistical nightmare to migrate three million customer calls to another network to do so would not be impossible.

The sky-high revelation came as Branson and Alexander held an impromptu press conference around the Upper Class bar of a Virgin Atlantic 747 winging its way to New York.

It was Virgin Atlantics inaugural flight showing off its new flatbed berths and Branson had invited the press along for the ride (see White Lines P52).

Virgin Mobile also took the opportunity to announce its best-ever quarterly figures. After all any hack who wanted to walk out of this presentation would have had a long way to fall.

Branson alluded to the problems T-Mobiles past management had created which he ascribed to one difficult individual – taking great care not to name ex-T-Mobile MD Harris Jones.

The new team at T-Mobile had given him great hope that a resolution would not be far off. But there were issues still to address. Branson needs to put the T-Mobile difficulties behind him as it is no secret that he and the rest of Virgin Groups management have aspirations to float Virgin Mobile sooner rather than later.

The company was incredibly upbeat about its 269681 net connections in Q3 which rocketed it to a total customer base from zero to 3138347 in exactly four years making it the worlds leading virtual provider. ARPU (average revenue per user) of 135 a year was better than any other network Alexander said.

For the first six months we grew our base quicker than everyone else put together. Our base is up 56 per cent year-on-year with churn of just 16 per cent a year.

How come? How is it that Virgin Mobile seems to be accelerating past everyone else in the slow lane?

The 3p on-net texting campaign has been a big factor with many Virgin Mobile users buying another phone for friends or family to take advantage of the giveaway rate.

The 3p text tariff and other value-focused offerings are driving growth and customer loyalty Alexander reckoned.

The Flash It loyalty programme also drove extra connections through Virgin stores as existing owners showed their Virgin handset to Virgin counter staff every time they bought a CD DVD or computer game and qualified for an instant 1 call credit.

Alexander explained how the multi-million-pound rollout programme of 92 Virgin Mobile concessions within existing Virgin Megastores and Virgin Megastores Xpress had contributed to the new high numbers.

The plan is for Virgin Mobile is to create 160 virtual shops and employ 220 new retail staff by the end of 2004.

Virgin Mobile already had numerous stores-within-stores in Virgin Megastore. But the new concessions are Virgin Mobile-branded and segregated from the rest of the store and staffed by people trained in mobile technology and retail methods. The idea is to have knowledgeable staff able to show customers how to set their phones up use voicemail set up VirginXtras and copy their SIM directory to their new phones among other tasks.

I think one reason why Virgin Mobile has been successful us that were not a stuffy corporate. We have people who enjoy working for the company said Alexander. l

The jolly held on Tuesday November 4 was to promote Siemens Mobile Direct an initiative designed to increase sales of Siemens products through smaller independent dealers. The scheme starts on January 1. Participating dealers are being promised the benefits and kudos of a direct relationship with the manufacturer even though they will continue to purchase handsets through Siemens-appointed distributors.

Siemens vice-president for Northern Europe Jonathan Bate explained why the manufacturer needed to launch the scheme.

We havent had a relationship with the dealers in the past. We are determined to change that he said. We want dealers to feel they have a direct relationship with us and with our distributors.

While Bate admitted that the manufacturer is not geared up to supply small amounts of kit to dealers he still believes it is important to have a direct relationship with dealers in other areas.

However Siemens priority over the past year has been to get the foundations right by strengthening its relationships with operators high street multiples and distributors and getting its product range right.

Only a couple of years ago we only had one operator partner Bate said. The company didnt know how to look after the retail channels. We have addressed that by hiring in new staff to build those relationships. Siemens has also worked hard to get its product offering right.

Having launched a new camera phone (the MC60) and with the launch of its SX-1 smartphone imminent Bate reassured the dealers that they were a vital part of the market.

A regular visitor to mobile phone shops up and down the country Bate says he is frustrated at the small number of dealers selling or recommending Siemens products.

We want a broader presence in the market. I want Siemens to be a preferred recommendation in your stores he added.

To achieve this Bate promised the dealers a direct channel of communication with the manufacturer. Siemens will also directly supply dealers with point of sale materials and dummy handsets while joint marketing promotions and a loyalty scheme are also being offered. Bate said he aimed to sign up around 50 Siemens Mobile Direct dealers even though he acknowledged that the scheme is not the first of its type in the industry. It is in fact similar to the Samsung Elect dealer initiative.

Where it differs however is that Siemens will not be using its distributors to provide extra support as Samsung does. Instead the manufacturer plans to supply everything bar handsets directly to the dealers leaving its distributors to concentrate on supplying kit.

We looked at using the distributors to provide the extra support but we felt it would be better to do it in-house Bate said.

Dealers who attended the event were impressed with the initiative. MoCo Cell Link boss Maurice Whelan told Mobile News:

It is good that a manufacturer has taken the trouble to get nearer the retailer rather than through distributors. It is better to get training and sales material direct from the manufacturer. Distributors are being pressurised with price and all they are interested in doing is selling handsets. Distributors generally cant give the same level of backup or service.

The handsets look good and are reliable. With a bit of luck they will give Nokia a run for its money.

(See White Lines P52)

Entrants get placed in one of four leagues and are set an individual target based on new SME connections during the promotional period

We are expecting a huge response and a massive drive to exceed targets from both existing and new customers commented Avenir Telecom commercial director Tanny Price.

Users can view a specified location on the colour screen and see traffic delays displayed in either miles per hour or estimated delay time.

The software has been provided by Integrated Mobile Technologies.