12. The future

T-Mobile has a few missions and goals. These are based on what went wrong during the last few years. The missions are:

-         A better world.

-         Taking the lead in WiFi.

-         Becoming number one in mobile communication.

-         Expension of the number of selling points

-         Improving the consumer service-line

T-Mobile tries to create a better world by taking more responsibility for the world and environment. The goal is to work more with green energie.

As you know there are a lot of complaints about the connection with the HotSpots. The goal is therefore building more HotSpots. Not only in the west but also in the east were the problems are bigger.  

KPN nowadays have 46 percent of the market of mobile users among them. T-Mobile is at the moment the number two, the goal is becoming number one.  

T-Mobile currently has 85 selling points. The goal is to increase the number of shops on the east side of the country.

Because the comment of Youp van ‘t Hek, improving the consumer service-line has become the number one priority. T-Mobile wants to achieve this by making more TV commercials about their service and products. Another way of reaching this goal is to train their employees who are working at the consumer service-line. Especially by training them to solve problems of the consumers. The problems may be related to payments, renewal of subscriptions, errors in their system, phones that don’t work as they should do.

11. Corporate social responsibility

Corporate social responsibility

The important thing of Corporate social responsibility is to find a balance between people, planet and profit. T-Mobile takes its responsibility for the effects of their business on humans, society and environment.

The CSR initiatives of T-Mobile can be divided into several categories:

            - Sustainable business

            - Sustainable products & services

            - Chain responsibility

            - Sustainable relationships

Sustainable business

Corporate social responsibility starts with your own business. So use all T-Mobile shops and its  network 100% green power. In combination of advanced equipment this means an efficient use of green energy. Further T-Mobile attempts to keep on the ISO 14001. This standard ensures that companies are going to focus on managing risks and improving environmental performance.

Sustainable products & services

Together with Samsung T-Mobile have released the first green cell phone on the market. These phones are made of recycled materials and have solar cells on the back.

Chain responsibility

At T-Mobile not only the price but also the production method is important. From 2010 on all the provisions of the Social Charter are included as a part of the purchasing process. The Social Charter has a number of principles which protect the relationships between employees. With the Social Charter T-Mobile stresses the importance of respecting human rights, equal opportunities, health and safety.

Sustainable relationships

Since 2007 T-Mobile has a sustainable relationship with partner War Child. To help War Child T-Mobile put in people and resources. Think of phones, communications links and network connections for employees of War Child.

10. Vodafone and KPN as competitor

Vodafone and KPN as competitor

Vodafone and T-Mobile are both big providers. The question which one of them is really better is hard to tell. It depends on what kind of user you are. In 2007 was Vodafone number two in the mobile communication market. When T-Mobile took over control of Orange this changed. T-Mobile had a quarter of the market quota. Nowadays KPN is number one and T-Mobile number two.   

                  

Benefits and disadvantage

Here are a few benefits of Vodafone and KPN:

• It doesn’t matter where you are, the accessibility of Vodafone is extremely good.
• The speed of internet of Vodafone is also better, this is because Vodafone has a data limit. Consumers can download a maximum of 1 GB.

The disadvantage of Vodafone and KPN

• The time u use for calling somebody is not rounded in seconds but costs you a whole minute, that in comparison with T-Mobile.
• They are a lot more expensive than T-Mobile.
• You can not take the remaining minutes to the next month.
• KPN and Vodafone both have a data limit. This means that a person only can download up to 1 GB.

                                                                                                                                                                             

Battle of the Iphone

It is clear that there is a battle between Vodafone and T-Mobile about the Iphone. The popularity of the Iphone is rising, and therefore also the sales. It seems like T-Mobile is winning the battle. Not because T-Mobile is such a good provider, the problem is the maximum of data download of Vodafone. A combination of an Iphone and a data limit is a fail. Another big issue is the fact that you have to pay a lot more extra for the Iphone compared

9. Promotion part 2

Promotion part 2

Salespromotion

It may be that you’ve noticed sometimes that the prices temporarily have been reduced. This way of promotion is called ‘sales promotion’. This is besides a temporarily reduction of the prices, also the opportunity to win a special gift. If you surf over the internet to http://www.tmobile.nl/ you can see the Samsung Galaxy S. The mobile phone is available for 25 Euros p/month, but if you buy the Samsung you will get a 8 GB memory card. The fact that you will get a memory card is sales promotion.

Football

Because T-Mobile is part of the Deutsche Telekom, it is attractive for T-Mobile to sponsor a team from Germany. With no doubt I can tell you that Bayern Munchen is the most successful club from Germany. Furthermore, Bayern Munchen plays almost every year in the Champions League. You can understand that you will create a worldwide branding name if you sponsor them. The annual sponsorship fee is around 25 million Euros. The contract runs until 2013. In 2006 T-Mobile was the official sponsor of the 2006 FIFA World Cub in Germany. T-Mobile is also active in the UK. They sponsor British teams as well as Scottish teams.

Cycling

Team HTC-high road is a cycling team. Their current sponsor is HTC. Before the name HTC-high road was been introduced, they called the team: T-Mobile team. The team won a lot of prices. But the problems began in 2006. There were a lot of doping scandals around the T-Mobile team. The reputation of T-Mobile suffered a lot of damage. That was the reason that the Deutsche Telekom decided immediately to stop the sponsoring ship.

8. Promotion part 1

Promotion part 1

T-Mobile makes promotion in different ways. The most used ways are TV commercials and posters. Nowadays everyone has a Hyves, Twitter or Facebook account. Advertising is also done through these channels.

TV commercials

T-Mobile has made many commercials. I have chosen a few of them, and now I will go in to them.

            Web’n’Walk commercial. In the beginning you can see a woman who is shopping and making a photo of a beautiful dress and sending it over the internet. Then there is a man who initially wants to drive on his appointment on his motorbike, but the sky above him is grey. He quickly searches on the web’n’walk of T-Mobile what the weather will be like. When he sees that it will be rainy weather he quickly takes a taxi. The last person is someone who has an appointment but he doesn’t know where it is. Quickly he seeks out where he should be. The three people seem to be friends and had agreed to meet. T-Mobile shows the convenience of a Web’n’Walk, wherever you are you can find everything, that is the message.

            Laptop commercial. T-Mobile shows in this commercial that mobile internet on your laptop is a nice gadget. You can be anywhere on your laptop. Beyond that the connection is so good that you can see all the details clearly

Poster

As I have written before, there are still a lot of complaints about the range of T-Mobile in certain areas. T-Mobile has tried to make promotion for this problem. What you see is a business man in a kind of desert busy with his mobile phone. He is calling someone and he speaks in ‘good connection’ which refers to the criticism that T-Mobile received.

7. Service for the consumer and Youp van ´t Hek.

Service for the consumer and Youp van ´t Hek.

Different types of services

Just like the other providers T-Mobile is trying to make it as easy as possible for consumers. They provide service through multiple options. Except the T-Mobile customer service line you can also be helped through Twitter, forums and by  mail. Besides, T-Mobile also  has          ‘My T-Mobile’. If you surf to http://www.tmobile.nl/ you can log in into My T-Mobile. This is an extra service to consumers, who can hold his own statement on his billing information. Despite all the opportunities that the consumer has, if he has a complaint or question there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with the service. For instance Youp van ‘t Hek.

Youp van ‘t Hek

T-Mobile has recently been criticized by Youp van ‘t Hek. The criticism was focused on the customer service of T-Mobile. After his criticism it appeared  that there were people who shared the same opinion with him. If people call the service line then they have to listen for an hour to boring music, and then they are supposedly helped. Many people don’t often become wiser. Youp was kept online for a long time without being helped, just like many other consumers. Youp was fed up with it and decided to send messages on Twitter. Surprisingly it did not take very long before he had a T-Mobile employee on the line. There is an ongoing investigation to the damage Youp has brought to T-Mobile. The damage is estimated at 200.000 Euros. Before Youp’s campaign 44% of the reports that T-Mobile got were negative, after the campaign 64% of all reports were negative.

As you can see, there are still a lot of things T-Mobile can improve on.

6. Development and partners

Development and partners

Inside the telecom and internetbranche developments take place in high speed. Every day new services and products are being launched, where mobile communication has a big role. T-Mobile is continuously trying to create new innovative services and products. This gives them an opportunity to expand and  improve their service for the consumers.

Besides their own activities, they’re always looking for partners to co-operate for more development. As example you can think of the Iphone and T-Mobile and their great success, also was the collaboration with Blackberry a big hit. T-Mobile has got a special development team. Their job is to bring T-Mobile and their partners together. They arrange the contact between the two organisations and evaluates the offer.

T-Mobile works with organisations who are active on the next areas:

Technology & Devices

Organisations that build networks for T-Mobile or supply new (innovative) mobile devices.

Products

Organisations who can develop, build and manage products and services for users of T-Mobile.
 Marketing & Sales
Organisations who can bring T-Mobile products and services into the market on an effective way.

Wholesale
Organisations that offer mobile products and services on their own name for instance, Service Provider, MVNO of Branded Reseller.

Telecom solutions

Organisations who supply solutions for Messaging & BlackBerry®, Fleetmanagement, Fieldservices, Corporate Data Access, Healthcare en Machine to Machine.

Another special thing is the Business partner. The Business partner of T-Mobile manages the mobile communication of companies. They listen to the wishes of the companies. Then they manage the mobile communication, of course this is depending on the wishes which are made.

5. Relationship between T-Mobile and Iphone

Relationship between T-Mobile and Iphone

The first Iphone was developed. T-Mobile was able to gain monopoly of selling Iphone devices for a long time. Because they had made good agreements with Apple they got the monopoly. Iphone is a very popular product, this in combination with T-Mobile was an important invention. Unfortunately, the monopoly ended in the middle of January 2010. T-Mobile has earned a lot of money because of  their monopoly.

Iphone 4

The monopoly ended when Iphone four hit the market. Nowadays you can also get an Iphone at KPN, Hi, Telfort and Vodafone. The result of losing this monopoly is not good for us as consumers. The prices did not decrease but  increased instead. T-Mobile increased the price of Iphones on 1 November 2010.

Iphone subscription

In an Iphone subscription you can surf, call and text from a bundle. You can also get unlimited access to the internet. This is not the case with the competitors. In the blog Vodafone and KPN as competitor I will tell you more about these regulations. At T-Mobile and other providers you have to choose whether you want an annual or a two-year-contract. Then you have to make an estimated how many minutes you think you need. The Iphone four is very expensive, that is the reason you have to pay a lot more extra for many different monthly fees. The extra money vary between 29,95 and 329,95 Euros. If you have a high monthly subscription you don’t have to pay a lot extra. Unfortunately the Iphone four is not available with an annual contract.

4. The employees

The employees

Training

All employees who have daily contact with consumers of T-Mobile have got a intensive training. When they have finished, they are capable to work in the shops, webcareteam or at the costumer service. The employee gets four weeks of training, the training is a combination of theory and practise. They learn things like having a conversation, and they get knowledge about their products and system.

Departments

Inside the T-Mobile headquarters there are different departments. The most important four are, the webcareteam, functional management, direct sales corporations and the customer service-line.

Webcareteam

T-Mobile has got a webcareteam, their job is to search on internet for positive and negative reactions. Next they approach consumers with problems and try to solve the problems.

Funtional management

In the headquarters of T-Mobile there are a lot of computers. These computers need maintenance. The functional management department regulates the maintenance.  

Direct sales corporations

This is a team who manage the contact with business consumers.

Consumer service-line

The last important department is the consumer service-line. The employees of the service-line give answers to your questions or complain.

Employees of the T-Mobile shop

The employees in the T-Mobile shop must be friendly, social and of course they must be able to sell products to consumers. It may be that the employee asks for your personal information. Unfortunately, the employees in England have sold information about their customers. T-Mobile decided to warn the British authorities. My advice to consumers is asking why they need your personal information.

3. The quality of the T-Mobile shops

The quality of the T-Mobile shops

To tell you about the T-Mobile shop I have visited a number of T-Mobile shops. A T-Mobile shop is a showroom for mobile phones, but you can also ask questions about your subscriptions and mobile phone. During my visit I watched the appearance and overview of the shop.

The appearance

To begin with I will write about the appearance of the store. What struck me was that the store was neat and tidy. The front of the door was clean as well. A lot of glass was used. The advantage of glass is that it gives the shop a modern look and it makes it look more spacious than it really is. I am also very positive over the inside of the shop. The showroom of T-Mobile contains a lot of white, the disadvantage of white is that if it is dirty you will see it immediately. But this was not the case, everything was clean and well maintained.

Overview of the shop

When entering the shop you pull a ticket to be helped. On a large matrix board you can see when it is your turn. Furthermore T-Mobile has an Iphone and a Blackberry helpdesk. Here you can be helped if you have questions regarding the Iphone and Blackberry. Besides these two service desks I found a waiting room, which if you ask me was very client-friendly. Possibilities such as pulling a ticket, a special service desk and a waiting room enhances customer’s focus. The result is that T-Mobile will get good response from their consumers.

A point that scored less was that the store wasn’t well divided. The store had a rectangular shape. Behind the service desk where you can ask your questions is also the showroom which makes it very narrow.

Overall I still think that the T-Mobile shop has a sufficient score. It has many options for consumers to make it as easy as possible.