Abstract:

In 1993 Deutsche Telekom began to tackle systematically the issue of customer satisfaction. To this end, Deutsche Telekom uses the TRIM system from Infratest AG in Munich. TRIM produces data about customer loyalty and customer satisfaction with Deutsche Telekom’s products and services. Currently, we split TRIM into a national and a regional part, but key account and internal parts are also planned. In total, Deutsche Telekom establishes the level of customer satisfaction of approximately 30 customers each year. Each product manager and Branch Office Manager therefore knows how satisfied the customers are with Deutsche Telekom’s products and services. As annual data do not always suffice, so-called customer tracking was introduced for the most important service areas. Customer tracking determines the level of satisfaction of our customers with services which have just been provided within two weeks, and at the customers own premises (e.g. installation and fault clearance). For the product division, termination analysis (analysis of reasons for customers terminating services) was introduced, which makes an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the product and condition mix possible. Internal quality data such as the actual installation and fault clearance times etc. are required in order to incorporate the standard required by our customers. The quality assurance officer has the task of analysing the data available and making appropriate proposals for the improvement of customer loyalty, and for initiating measures. We describe the complete system, consisting of customer satisfaction analysis, customer tracking, termination analysis and quality data, as a Deutsche Telekom AG action-based programme to maintain customer loyalty.