New Rogers CEO Joe Natale Making Customer Service a Top Priority

On his first day as the chief executive officer of Rogers Communications, Joe Natale made it clear he will make customer service his top priority.

Natale has been silent being named by the board in October to lead the company, bound by the terms of a non-compete agreement with Telus, where he was formerly CEO. Freed of those constraints on Wednesday and now officially on board as CEO, he highlighted the work that must be done to better serve subscribers.

In a speech at the company’s annual general shareholder meeting in Toronto, he said that Rogers has made some “inroads” on customer service in recent years, but acknowledging that there is a lot of work left. Natale said he does not yet have a detailed plan for the company. He will spend the next few weeks talking to technicians in the field and visiting retail stores and call centers to get a better sense of the customer service experience on the ground.

The Toronto-based company is Canada’s biggest wireless carrier and has a large base of cable television and Internet customers in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces. Given its size, the amount of attention that is given to the customer service experience is crucial for maintaining and growing its customer base.

Natale’s predecessors, most recently Guy Laurence and before him Nadir Mohamed, both recognized poor customer experience as a major hurdle at Rogers. Even though Rogers has some momentum behind it now, improving customer service is still among the most important tasks for the company if they hope to promote profit growth.

[via TheStar]