Rogers CEO: Canadian Carriers Should Improve on Saving Customers Time

Speaking at the start of the Canadian Telecom Summit today in Toronto, Rogers CEO Guy Laurence stressed how telcos should work on implementing better technology to help save customers time, according to the Toronto Star.

Laurence said “If we don’t understand how valuable their time is, and design what do with this in mind, then we will be irrelevant,” noting how consumers want to be able to do more things online such as have groceries delivered, adding “Let’s be clear. It’s not that they’re trying to avoid the groceries, it’s about buying back two hours of their life every week.”

As for Canadian wireless carriers, more should be done to minimize customer wait times, in particular when it comes to the thousands of various pricing plans, as it has caused people to spend too much time online to research the best plans: “Lots of people don’t want to call a call centre. They want to go online and solve it in three minutes, not 30.”

Call centres will always stick around, but customers need more simple solutions instead of complex, says Laurence: “Don’t get me wrong. I think there will always be call centres but are we really bringing in enough simplicity to our customers?”

The CEO went on to say the telecom industry “can do a lot more” and added “I think Canadian business and the public sector are underserved by technology in the quest to be more productive and give back more time.”

Canadians need more time as the Rogers CEO said “I don’t think it’s okay” and continued with “I don’t think we have a choice but to rapidly develop our efforts in giving customers more time.” No specific ideas were shared by Laurence on how to save customers time, but he did share stats which noted only 5.3 percent of Canadian retail sales are done online, despite half of the public browsing online retail channels.

Last month, the CEO unveiled the new ‘Rogers 3.0’ plan, aimed at revamping the company’s future and the way it deals with customers. More recently, Rogers is set to change the way it performs hardware upgrades, requiring $80 plans come June 17, while grandfathered data plans are seeing price increases to set to kick in on August 6.

What do you think Rogers and the industry as whole can do to help save customers more time?

For starters, it would be nice not having to repeat your story to multiple customer service reps on the phone when you have a problem, or be passed along like a hot potato when you share a problem with no solution.

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