Overview
Yesterday's formal
re-naming
of cable company ntl:Telewest to Virgin Media coincided with its
introduction of (more accurately, the ability to place orders
for) 10 bundles of services, up to and including
some true
quad-play packages of TV, internet, landline phone and mobile
phone that start at £40 per month.
Bundle choices let you pick two services for £20
(phone+TV, phone+broadband and broadband+TV)
and three for £30 (phone+TV+broadband,
phone+TV+mobile, phone+broadband+mobile and TV+broadband+mobile).
Significantly, the company will be greatly extending its reach
by providing BT-based phone, broadband and TV services in
areas where there is no cable.
Virgin Media has also come up with a crafty way of getting more cable
subscribers in at the bottom end (and keeping existing phone
customers loyal) - by offering a new free TV service to
everyone who has or signs up for a cable-phone.
As well as 39 TV channels and an unspecified number of DAB radio
channels, the free service will also be offering from February
20 a free instant-play TV-on-demand channel - Virgin Central.
Here users will be able to pick what to watch and the
choice, the company says, will include "major TV series" such as
The OC, Nip/Tuck, West Wing,
Little Britain, Grey's Anatomy, Alias, Criminal Minds, CSI : Crime
Scene Investigation and
CSI : Miami.
At yesterday's briefing, it was openly admitted that the quality of
customer service had been
unacceptably poor for ntl users and far inferior to that enjoyed by
those who'd signed up in Telewest areas.
However, it was claimed that things would be far better from now.
According to the two top bods from ntl:Telewest (chairman Jim Moody and
CEO Steve Burch) and Richard Branson himself - all with hands
on heart - this was because there had genuinely been more than just
a name-change.
Steve Burch, Richard Branson and
Jim Moody - picture from VisMedia
An extra 300 customer-care staff had been recruited, training had been
greatly improved and the whole company ethos was being changed to
reflect the customer-centred priorities of a Virgin company.
To us, though, more telling still was the statement that 19 out of 20
of the company's top executives have changed in the
last year.
It all sounded very plausible - and calls we made yesterday to the
company's support lines showed that front-line staff seem to think
there really has been a sea-change.
But we can't help wondering just how certain anyone can be
when Virgin Media isn't owned and run by Branson himself -
it uses the Virgin brand on a sort of franchise basis, with
Branson lending his support and name.
Time, of course, will show whether the fine words reflect genuine
changes but there's little doubt that the company appears to
be thinking and acting smarter than in the past.
And, as proof of that, dive over to page two and find out more about
what deals Virgin Media is offering...
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