Called BT Reward, it is aimed at increasing awareness of the range of value add services the company offers and at increasing its dialogue with customers. Mike Willacy, the voice management propositions manager for BT Global Services, said the initiative came after research showed that customers thought BT’s maintenance contracts were not very flexible. 

‘We were quite surprised by this because our contracts can be moulded very precisely to a customer’s needs but it meant that our message was not getting through,’ he said.  ‘We wanted to try and be demonstrably flexible in an imaginative way.  We also wanted to reward customers who have been with us a long time.’

The scheme is aimed at users of Nortel or Siemens systems from BT’s Convergent Solutions who are on either its TotalCare or CustomCare Express maintenance programmes, or who sign up to or renew, long-term maintenance contracts.  So if, for example, a customer signs up for a £10,000 contract they will get 1000 bonus points for a year contract.  For a five year contract they get 5000 plus a bonus 1000 points and for a seven year deal they win 9000 points.  These points can then be redeemed for some of the value add services the division offers such as training and security heath checks or against new products.   

Willacy said, however, that customers would not be able to use the points for discounts on existing maintenance contracts. ‘We want to increase the value from what they spend, not give them money off,’ he said.   By offering a list of the types of service the customer redeems the points against will, said Willacy, inevitably increase the awareness that they exist and also encourage the customers to try them out.   He said the company was also considering offering upgrades in the support package from, say, a Monday to Friday service to include Saturdays.

He said the company would also be running special monthly and bi-monthly promotions that offered extra rewards in exchange for points.   He added that customers could use the points on a corporate basis and not just related to the location that had the system.

Willacy said: ‘We believe it provides much greater flexibility for our long-term customers.  It also allows us to deliver a customised service, tailored to our clients' precise requirements and will enable us to maintain and extend our leadership in this sector.’