​TDC Group’s customer satisfaction back on track

After a setback in 2014, TDC Group’s customer satisfaction has risen significantly according to the company’s earnings release for the first half of the year published today.

This achievement fulfils CEO Carsten Dilling’s declared prime target for 2015; to increase customer satisfaction. During 2014, customer satisfaction decreased due to an unusually high number of calls, leading to lengthy waiting times in call centres i.e. in Q2 2014, 35% of all callers waited more than 3 minutes for support. In Q2 2015, the figure was reduced to only 5% of callers.

“We achieved this by the focused execution of our customer transformation programme (TAK+), which included targeted investments in digitalisation, improved customer journeys, a staff increase in Channels and quality-improving outsourcing of support calls to Sitel. This improved waiting times and accessibility significantly across touch points at our call centres in Q2 but in other areas we still see room for improvements”, says Carsten Dilling.

He adds that while continuing to highlight customer satisfaction, TDC Group is also planning new digital self-service functionalities and other initiatives.

The financial results met expectations with revenue growth of 6.4%, and EBITDA growth of 2.5% - both due to the acquisition of Get. However, several challenging issues were also mentioned i.e. TDC Group’s EBITDA development remained challenged in Denmark (down -11.3%), due mainly to the performance of its Business division.

The fierce pricing environment in the Danish business market continued, and TDC Group is facing strong competition both on mobile and landline network solutions. In Q2, TDC Group did not manage to recover a large public tender from a competitor for the provision of WAN. The awarded price point left no room for reasonable profit, quality, excellent customer experiences or innovative solutions. A number of actions have been initiated in order to improve the development in Business.

“In the public sector, though the focus on price alone may yield some short-term operational benefits, in the long term it will fail to encourage digital innovation. This in no way corresponds with Danish political visions of digitalisation as a means for renewing the public sector”, says Carsten Dilling.

In the retail market, TDC Group increased the number of mobile subscribers by 13,000 compared with Q1, marking a shift after previous quarterly losses. This followed the company’s successful campaign for its nationwide 4G-network in Q2, increasing data traffic by more than 80%. A recent survey has named TDC Group’s 4G-network the worlds fastest.

Outside Denmark, TDC Group delivered strong results. In Norway, Get presented its best quarterly customer net adds in several years, with 8,000 new broadband and 4,000 new TV customers vs. Q1. The Swedish B2B division continued its positive trend with double-digit revenue growth in local currency.

“Based on our Q2 results, we are committed to delivering on our full-year guidance on all parameters. We will pay interim dividend of DKK 1.00 per share on 12 August 2015 as guided”, says Carsten Dilling.