First a personal observation, I think my calendar is the same as the rest of the uk, well at least I think it is!  What made me query it?  Well on the 15^th October what arrived?  A parcel from 3 networks, ah I thought Freebies or at least an invite to one of their forthcoming Christmas functions.  I opened it with anticipation, to find what?  Point of sale material for OCTOBER!!!

What made matters worse was the delivery ticket which proudly told me under description amongst other things POS GUIDE – Sept 07   WHAT!!!!

Its question time for the networks this week, so here is the first.

Come on 3 I appreciate the material, but please, its halfway through the month already, not only me but shop owners need this type of material BEFORE the start of the new month, perhaps this is another question for Sales Director Marc Allera to answer.  All businesses need a structured plan, but there is no plan when we get POS mid month, does that mean new mobiles and promotions in on the 1^st November that shop owners won’t have POS until the 15^th.  Sorry 3 only scored 2/10 for that one.

Have you noticed the disparity of the enable system? For a system that is supposed to help dealers, some strange things happen, for example on doing checks for band 1 customers there is plenty of information that comes up, but if you are a band 5 customer (a valuable resource) then in many cases you cannot find them on the system, or they ask you to get the customer to contact customer services, yet you can get the information via the tel automated system, I wonder why? Or is it Orange want to keep band 5 customers to themselves perhaps Orange would like to contact FONE and explain why.

Claw back is not something that dealers like, especially when they have no control on what the customer does.  An example might be a customer misses a payment or gets cut off.  Now Orange of course will ask for proofs and will then not claw back, BUT Vodafone, O2 and T-Mobile will.  So we have to ask WHY?  We have to ask the networks, why claw back dealers, when YOU have credit checked customers, and what is the point of asking for proofs if the liability is going to fall on the dealer, surly you have to take some of the risk, especially if YOU have passed them in the first place.  It seems in the case of those networks that there is no point whatsoever in asking for proofs, as it’s not going to protect dealers, so wwe ask those 3 networks to explain the point in us asking for and keeping proofs.

Another thing networks have to answer is why they insist on contacting customers directly with no thought of the dealer.  Time and again as part of the customer service, dealers have spoken to their customers only to find the network has upgraded them before the end of their contract.  The networks need to realise that the customer is NOT THEIRS!.  The customer could take their custom to a different network if they choose to. Networks should NOT contact customers to upgrade but advise the dealer, he is the one that has a relationship with them, he is the one they turn to for advice, he is the one that actually looks after the customer, what do the networks offer, a faceless call centre operator that has no interest in the customers problems all they are interested in is poaching the customer away from the dealer.  Come on networks be fair, and give us a guaranteed statement that you will not bypass dealers and upgrade customers before end of contract.