Sky Invests In Staff For Customer Loyalty

BSkyB has announced a £5m investment in training for its customer service staff, in order to enhance customer loyalty.

The news was announced at the opening of the digital service provider’s upgraded customer contact centre in West Lothian, the refurbishment of which forms part of a £50m investment in improving its call centres.

Richard Freudenstein, BSkyB’s chief operating officer, commented on the new investment in training, which will see all Sky employees undergoing at least three full days of bespoke training: “We want to give all of our staff the skills and confidence to build the ever-stronger customer relationships that are vital to maintaining Sky’s industry-leading rates of customer loyalty.”

The investment appears to signal how seriously Sky is taking the phenomenon of “churn”- the rate at which existing customers cancel their subscriptions to the service. In its first quarter results, released earlier in the month (see Sky Reports Revenue Increases), Sky said that its churn rate for the period was 10.4%. In October, rival ITV Digital announced a churn rate for the quarter of 23.1%. Both of these figures have increased since last year, but are expected to decrease as the customer bases mature.

BSkyB: 020 7705 3000 www.sky.com

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