Interim management of the Vizzavi Customer Care Centre

December 2000 to February 2002

Vizzavi, the precursor to Vodafone Live!, was set up in 2000 as a joint venture between Vodafone and Vivendi. The company was one of the first initiatives to reinforce customer loyalty among Vodafone users by offering personalised services and by linking the customer’s mobile number to e-mail and other services on the internet.

As member of the Vizzavi management team I was responsible for developing a customer care strategy which made it possible to combine customer support for
e-mail, mobile and internet services in one concept. Furthermore I was the interim and project manager responsible for implementing this concept and building and managing the customer care organisation.

I was interim manager for Vizzavi’s own second-line call and e-mail centre (30 employees and 7 project managers). Furthermore I was contract manager responsible for the relationship and the contract with Sykes, a call centre supplier who was commissioned to handle first-line customer support.

The reason why customer care had a central role in Vizzavi was because customers found the services to be technically complex. Also, mobile phones were not yet very user friendly; setting up a mobile phone for WAP was not a picnic, and each time Vizzavi would introduce a new service, a large portion of the total client base invariably checked in to the call centre with questions. Customer care was therefore an important “potential dissatisfier”: customers just as soon packed in their registration with Vizzavi if their call or e-mail had not been adequately handled. For without this help they couldn’t use their services. Customer care was therefore a key to success for Vizzavi.