O2 LANDS DEAL WITH HOMESERVE
- Emergency insurance and home repairs company selects O2 for mobile voice and data
18 August 2008, O2 today announced that it has won a coveted contract with Homeserve plc, one of the UK's largest providers of home emergency insurance. O2 will provide voice and mobile data services in a three year deal that will see approximately 4,000 connections transferred to O2 from incumbent providers Orange and Vodafone, using devices including BlackBerry and PDAs.
The deal will see O2 providing mobile solutions to enhance the efficiency and flexibility of the Homeserve workforce, ensuring its ability to respond to emergency calls as quickly as possible and maintaining the high levels of customer service it prides itself on. Homeserve considers mobile technology critical to the success of its business, with over 5,000 employees and sub contractors remotely located across the UK. O2's excellent UK network coverage was a significant factor in its selection as a mobile partner.
Over the course of three years, O2 will work closely with Homeserve to provide various mobile solutions, including routing calls via a VPN to help reduce the overall cost to the business and enable employees to communicate economically and efficiently with customers. This is just one of a number of applications that O2 will offer to Homeserve employees and subcontractors to continue to assist and improve their business processes and efficiencies.
Trevor Didcock, CIO at Homeserve plc said: "Homeserve is committed to providing unsurpassed customer service. We have thousands of tradesmen on the road and they all need to be in touch with our customers and offices 24/7. From real time updates on PDAs to communicating with customers via SMS, this new partnership with O2 will support our future ambition to stay ahead of the pack and ensure we are delivering a first rate service for our customers."
Ben Dowd, Business Sales Director, O2 UK, said of the deal: "Mobile technology can be used for so much more than simple communication. As a business, customer service is at our core and we are delighted to be working with Homeserve to help them provide the very best service to their customers. "
About O2
- Telefónica O2 UK Limited is a leading communications company for consumers and businesses in the UK, with over 18.7 million mobile customers and over 190,000 fixed broadband customers as at 30 June 2008.
- Telefónica O2 UK Limited is part of Telefónica Europe plc which is a business division of Telefónica S.A. and which owns O2 in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic, and has 43.8 million customers.
- In 2006 Telefónica Europe acquired Be, the UK fixed broadband provider, and in October 2007O2 launched its broadband service using the Be network.
- O2 is the naming rights partner of The O2, the world-class entertainment venue.
- O2 was ranked the 6th best place to work in the Best Companies to Work for 2008 List and has been awarded a three-star accreditation denoting an 'extraordinary' company.
- O2 was launched on 1 May 2002 and now has more customers than any other UK mobile network.
- O2's UK mobile network covers 99% of the UK's population. O2's 3G network covers 80% of the UK population and is fully HSDPA-enabled, providing speeds of up to 1.8 MBps for customers with an HSDPA-enabled device.
- Telefónica Europe also owns 50% of the Tesco Mobile joint venture in the UK and Ireland, and 50% of the Tchibo Mobilfunk joint venture business in Germany.
- For b-roll footage of O2, please visit www.digitalnewsagency.com
- For further press information about O2 go to mediacentre.o2.co.uk
About Homeserve
Every forty seconds a Homeserve engineer comes to the rescue of a British household. With over 4,600 directly employed and sub-contracted engineers, Homeserve is a national emergency home repair service backed by a 24 hour claims handling and repair network.
Homeserve also offers insurance cover for plumbing, drains, electrical wiring and gas central heating. It has over 6.3 million policy members in the UK and a further 1.8 million in the USA, France and Spain.
Visit www.homeserve.com for handy hints around the home.
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