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NEWS:
Green-o-meter
advocates
GreenMinutes
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SINCE
we launched our GreenMinutes product at the start of
the year, many partners have been benefiting from Gamma's
minutes being CarbonNeutral® in helping them to
close deals. By placing traffic over Gamma’ s network,
you can show how you are helping your customers reduce
their carbon footprint. The initiative has been particularly
successful with the public sector as it faces increasing
pressure to meet government targets. In order to help
you demonstrate CO2 output to potential and existing
customers, we’ve also recently launched the Green-o-meter
- a simple web-based tool that can be embedded in to
your own website, or accessed on Gamma's. The tool shows
how many kilograms of CO2 customers are offsetting,
or will offset, by running their calls over Gamma's
network. Gamma's GreenMinutes and Green-o-meter provides
partners with a differentiator which can act as a deal
closer, "When it comes to selling voice minutes
it can be hard to set yourself apart from similar competitors;
using the new tool just allows us to offer something
extra and saying the network is the greenest in the
UK is very powerful, especially with public sector customers,"
commented Jon Loftin, sales director at Modern Communications.
Click
here to find out more about Gamma’s GreenMinutes
To put the Green-o-Meter on your website, simply email
Gamma's marketing
team or call 0808 168 1818
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ANDREW
Richards of Gamma Telecom died suddenly on 20th August
2009. Andrew was a long standing member of the Gamma
team and provided customer support initially as part
of the front desk and was one of the first members of
the technical support centre (TSC) formed in 2007. He
was well liked and a great friend and colleague to many
people in Gamma and formed a number of strong relationships
with many of Gamma’s channel partners. He will
be sorely missed by all those that knew him.
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MESSAGE
FROM BOB...
|
 Never
lose sight of the basics: When asked to write
this introductory piece I happened to be ploughing through
our quality measures in advance of our monthly Quality
Steering Group. It struck me that it’s all too easy
to talk about the market, the products and all the sexy
stuff but at the end of the day it’s all for nothing
if you don’t get the basics right. At Gamma Telecom
we focus very hard on this stuff because it really matters.
Here
are just a few highlights from October: 1) All CDR’s
delivered by 10am (actually by 7am on all but 2 days).
2) Just shy of 1000 porting orders with only 2% of calls
to the porting desk going unanswered (the level of automation
we have here really helps a complex process move smoothly
and ensures we do not introduce any delay before a port
order is processed by BT). 3) WLR problem reports down
25% - partly through our move to WLR3. 4) Calls to 21
of our top 25 international destinations had > 65%
of their calls answered; this far exceeds the OFCOM guideline
of 55%. Turkey, Finland, China and UAE were marginally
less than the other destinations (this is often an indicator
of network problems at the far end of the call).
Now
it is a fact that much of the new hardware and software
technology coming into telecoms networks today derives
from the internet. This brings many benefits in terms
of cost, functionality, and speed of modernisation. It
is, however, less comprehensively tested by the manufacturers,
it is updated more regularly, and the technical standards
less well developed than in the past. This puts more of
a burden on the network operator to build in testing,
redundancy and, critically, to drive out the root cause
of problems when they inevitably occur. I am convinced
we will see a significant gap open between those who do
this and those who don’t, but all will have challenges.
We are now highly experienced in this and absolutely committed
to service excellence.
As
part of that we are just rolling out a new trouble ticketing
system that will give us greater ability to search for
repeat problems and patterns. The point I’d really
like to make is that all of the quality mantra about getting
it “right first time” and “quality is free”,
that gave the Japanese such an edge in the 1980’s,
is even more true today, particularly in the more commodity
side of the industry where it becomes the main differentiator
- and the only way to keep the costs down.
Consolidating
industry: I often get asked my view on consolidation
in the channel and I have to say that, from some of the
stuff you read, you could talk yourself into thinking
that the channel is going to disappear into a few large
companies. This, however, is simply not going to happen.
Sure there is a period of consolidation, however over
the last 3 months we have signed up 21 resellers of whom
5 are new to this part of the industry. The channel exists
and will continue to exist because it has unique routes
into a difficult to reach market and nothing about that
has fundamentally changed. As players exit or get bought
out, so others enter and start to grow. My bet is that
the channel will be as vibrant in 10 years time as it
is now (even if I’m not!). Our focus will be to continue
giving you high quality “traditional” services
but with an expanding range of differentiators over the
competition, coupled with some more product releases and
enhancements to help you sell and keep your existing customers.
Bob Falconer,
Chief Executive, Gamma Telecom |
| SERVICE
EXCELLENCE |
channel
choice |
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CUSTOMER
SERVICES AT GAMMA |
 WE
WELCOME
Jo Shuttleworth who has recently joined Gamma as a Head
of Customer Services, reporting into Andy Morris. Jo takes
on responsibility for our front desk, number management,
provisioning and training teams. She brings with her a
wealth of experience in both legacy telecommunications
and also Next Generation services. A key aim for Gamma
is to build a model around consistent, quality focused
processes, thus allowing a platform for future growth
and a smoother transition to increased volume. A natural
progression to explore is to provide a managed service
for end user support on behalf of our partners and we’d
welcome your feedback on this. We will be looking carefully
at the training programme that we offer, primarily to
focus our training efforts on those processes & products
where we see high levels of contact into Customer Operations
and in turn reduce volume of calls that do not add value
to our partner relationships. We are keen to work closely
with our partners to identify how we can do things better,
part of this is to develop a customer service proposition
which adds benefit to our partners. The changes to customer
operations should mean we have a much better insight into
what our partners want and how we build our customer service
and training programmes around meeting these needs.
If
you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement,
Jo is keen to hear from you. You can email Jo at jshuttleworth@gammatelecom.com
or call 0333 240 3244 Back
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| GAMMA
MOBILE UPDATE |
channel
choice |
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GAMMA
MOBILE HITS THE ROAD
WITH
BRANDBUILDER RELEASE
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 THERE'S
been lots going on with Gamma Mobile recently including
the release of BrandBuilder, a new data bundle package
and a UK wide roadshow.
BrandBuilder is a new flavour of Mobile that gives mobile
dealers customer ownership and the opportunity to service
both low and high ARPU businesses. It allows dealers to
focus on selling the mobile packages, with Gamma taking
care of all the back-office tasks including handset fulfilment
, managed billing with the dealers' brand, first line
support, end user contracts and the network services including
CDRs, portals, SIMs, credit checking and fraud tools.
Andrew Skipsey, Director at M12 Solutions, said: "We're
particularly excited because BrandBuilder gives us complete
control over price and profit and significantly, it allows
us to deliver solutions to businesses with lower ARPU
without us incurring any penalties. We see Gamma's offering
initially sitting alongside the other networks which gives
us absolute flexibility on the type of solutions that
we can offer customers."
We
hit the road at the end of the month together with 3 mobile
to update partners on the opportunities that exist with
Gamma mobile in the SME market. The UK wide tour which
ran from October 20th - 22nd covered venues in Manchester,
the Midlands and London. We saw over 100 resellers and
dealers and the event was extremely well received with
a lot of interest in our new Brandbuilder and data bundle
packages propositions. Each morning session included an
update from 3 on the mobile industry in general and information
on their latest network rollout plans; a product update
from Gamma highlighting new services and latest developments;
and a session highlighting tips on selling mobile broadband
to business users.
Rob
Davies, Senior Product Manager at Gamma, said: "We
went on the road with our network partners at 3 so that
we could listen to the channel and highlight the many
opportunities that exist that can help them build their
brand and value of their businesses." Back
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| ACHIEVEMENT
NEWS |
channel
choice |
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GAMMA'S
AWARDS & ACCOLADES!
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WE'RE
very pleased to have been recognised in the industry over
the last few months, collecting Winner for Carrier of
the Year and Finalist for Mobile Carrier of the Year awards
at the Comms National Awards in London. As CNA 2009 Carrier
of the Year, Gamma competed against major fixed line operators
and was shortlisted against Cable & Wireless and Opal.
The
award reflects how Gamma has proactively helped resellers
to grow their businesses in a high margin converged environment,
demonstrating reliability, technical and sales training
and support, innovative incentive schemes, excellence
in account management and ease of doing business. Richard
Bligh, Group Marketing Director at Gamma, commented: "To
win an award that was voted for by an independent panel
of industry experts demonstrates that our partner initiatives
continue to be successful and such recognition is a testament
to the hard work Gamma has invested in providing the best
service available in the market. Pictured above: Daryl
Pile (centre), Sales Director at Gamma, collecting the
Carrier of the Year Award.
GAMMA
VOTED BEST UK COVERAGE OF
NEXT
GENERATION NETWORK SERVICES |
 IN
A recent survey by Comms Business readers,
BT, Cable&Wireless and Opal Telecom were
easily outvoted against Gamma Telecom when
the channel was asked who they thought had
the best UK coverage of Next Generation Network
services. The survey, which was run online
for a week with results posted on 24th August
2009, asked readers of Comms Business "Who
would you say has the best UK coverage of
Next Generation Network services?" The
results showed Gamma to be the clear winner
with the channel only focussed carrier receiving
a massive 46% of the vote, followed by BT
with 35% and Cable and Wireless and Opal Telecom
each getting 9% of the vote. "To be voted
for independently by the channel shows that
our continued commitment and investment in
supporting our partners is working. We'll
continue to ensure that we remain the leader
in NGN services in the UK," said Bob
Falconer, CEO, Gamma.
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| GAMMABALL
RALLY INCENTIVE |
channel
choice |
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PARTNERS
RALLY BEHIND GAMMA |
 SO
HERE was the challenge set to Gamma staff and partners:
Buy a car on ebay for less than £250. Meet at Bournemouth
at 6.00am. Race down to a luxury villa in the Pyrenees
for a weekend of fine dining and relaxation. As part of
an incentive to reward leading resellers of Gamma's successful
new Inbound service, the team met on a clear September
morning to take part in the GammaBall Rally. A total of
six cars were in the race plus support vehicle. Ranging
from a Volvo estate with half a gear stick to a Honda
Legend 3.5V6 where the doors wouldn't open, it's safe
to report that the fleet of cars "had character".
Crossing the channel from Poole, the race began in Cherbourg
and took the team through Nantes, Bordeaux and across
to Perpignan, before starting the climb through the Pyrenees
to a luxury villa in the village of St Laurent de Vendon.
Despite
Abtec's best efforts to win the race, they lost the lead
to the Universal car 40 kms from the finish line. The
winning car completed the dash through France in just
over 8 hours. The final car arrived 5 hours later, having
tested each and every restaurant south of Cherbourg !
All the cars arrived safely with no breakdowns, no speeding
fines, and no loss of life !
Anthony Beard of Abtec commented " This was such
a great event . It's always difficult to come up with
an incentive trip that's unique, but Gamma did it. The
race was fun, the villa was superb and the company was
excellent. If Gamma do it next year – we'll win!"
John
Haw, Sales Director at Gamma, and the inspiration behind
the GammaBall Rally, said "We're very pleased with
the way the event worked out. It was a bit off the wall,
but everyone entered into the spirit of the rally and
enjoyed it. Special thanks to Michael Holland of Universal
in High Wycombe who kindly let us stay at his villa."
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| GIRL
POWER |
channel
choice |
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GAMMA
HOSTS LADIES SPA DAY
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| WE
RECENTLY hosted a Ladies' Spa Day for our female Channel
Partners at the Donnington Valley Hotel and Spa near Newbury.
The theme of the spa day was 'pure relaxation and indulgence'
and included beauty treatments, a three course lunch,
afternoon Champagne and full use of the pool, Jacuzzi,
steam room, sauna, aromatherapy room and monsoon shower.
Richard Bligh, Group Marketing Director at Gamma Telecom
commented, "In such a male dominated industry, it's
all too easy to overlook the interests of our female customers.
The lack of women at some of our corporate events is unmistakable
and it's important that we recognise the ongoing support
and loyalty of our female customers and reward them with
a day out that they really enjoy." Vicky Rishbeth
at Focus4U added, "It was a fantastic day! It was
great to network with other women in the industry and
a real treat to spend the whole day being pampered. A
big thank you to Gamma for thinking of us ladies."
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