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Author Orange dumps 110 dealers in clean-up
jcwhite_uk
Sony Xperia Z1
Joined: Feb 18, 2004
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From: Dorset, UK Phone:Xperia Z1
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Posted: 2007-08-22 16:47
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Orange summoned its key distribution partners to one-on-one meetings this week to reveal its plans to clamp down on call centre activity and cull more than 100 dealers which do not make the grade.

Senior staff from Avenir, Mainline, Dextra, EBS and Hugh Symons were among those digesting news of Orange's clean-up strategy.

They were told the network is cutting off 110 dealers and going through a list of more than 100 that are 'in danger of bad trading practices'.

Steve Heald, head of sales for mass retail and independents, revealed the decision, which was taken after reviewing key performance indicator targets (KPIs) since April 2006.

In 'extreme' cases, 25-30% of a dealer's business could be fraudulent, Heald told Mobile. 'Every month, we look at the level of fraud, returns and churn. Some are good partners and some are not so strong. We have made progress, but we will cease to do business with a number of dealers. There are those who do not make commercial sense for Orange and we cannot support them.'

But Orange would not streamline its distributor base, said Heald. 'We feel the issue is the next level down.'

The news was 'not good for those involved', admitted Heald, but 'it would not come as a surprise'. 'What we are talking about is the message we have been putting out for over a year. We are talking about KPIs, customer quality and how to take that further, and about clearer guidelines around customer irritation – call centres to upgrade people and cashback policies.'

Orange is prohibiting third parties from any call centre activity using outbound methods. 'We have reduced activity by a third from a year ago, but there are still complaints. From September, we don't want anyone contacted by a third party for upgrading, but most distributors have some involvement in some call centre activity,' said Heald.

Orange is also 'reinforcing Orange cashback policies'. 'This is not targeted to negatively impact on good, established dealers,' insisted Heald.

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