BT gets personal on speed guarantees

BT has announced a new initiative, Stay Fast Guarantee, which will aim to hyper-personalise speed guarantees for new and re-signing customers.

When a new customer signs-up for BT’s broadband service, or an existing customer renews a contract, they will be given a bespoke speed guarantee for their home based on the estimated capability of the line. Should the service fall below these expectations, the customer will be able to apply for a £20 refund.

The initiative also promises that if it is believed a broadband customer could get a faster line speed, BT will first remotely optimise broadband performance, or an engineer will be dispatched to improve performance.

“With our new Stay Fast Guarantee, we don’t just guarantee customers’ broadband speeds, we constantly check and optimise them, so they’ll get reliable broadband speeds all day every day,” said Kelly Barlow, Marketing Director at BT.

“If a customer’s broadband falls below their personal speed guarantee then we have an expert team of service agents on hand to get things back to normal as soon as possible – ensuring they get the best and most personal broadband experience.”

While it does sound like a promising initiative, as with all these glorious promises the fine print has to be examined.

Firstly, BT is giving itself an exceptionally wide-berth to fix any faults. Customers will only be eligible to receive the £20 refund should BT not be able to fix the fault within 30 days of it being identified. Whether this is considered a reasonable window is open to debate, though for us BT should perhaps hold itself more accountable to deliver the promised performance; 30 days is a long-time for a customer to wait for the service he/she has paid for.

Secondly, customers can only apply for the refund four times a year. If problems persist, customers are left in the lurch until the end of their contract.

Finally, ‘outages, connection faults and home wiring outside of BT’s control’ will be excluded from the refund. Although this is commonplace for all telcos when offering some sort of refund, the generic and all-encompassing nature of the language offers a lot of wiggle room.

Where BT should be congratulated is on the attempt at personalisation. Catch-all statements and promises generally fail to deliver, therefore such a granular approach to performance and customer satisfaction should be applauded.

Slowly the telcos are staggering towards what would be deemed acceptable customer service. This is a good example of such initiatives. More of the same please.