One of this island’s main providers in the local telecommunications industry has embarked on a mission to better satisfy customers’ needs.
Officials of Flow Barbados announced on Thursday that after carrying out market research, they have decided to introduce two new “triple-play” bundles – the Onward Plan and the Upward Plan.
Each bundle, which will not require a contract, consists of broadband, landline and TV.
With the Upward Plan at $180 per month, customers will get 300 megabytes of broadband speed, 500 international landline minutes per month, while the Onward Plan will cost $240 per month and customers will receive 600 megabytes of broadband speed and 1,000 international landline minutes. Each plan comes with up to 164 tv channels incuding the HBO channels.
Insisting that the move was in an effort to become more customer-focused, officials also announced that the company would be providing free in-home assessment, free equipment upgrades, free WiFi extenders and additional set-top-boxes, if needed, once individuals sign up for one of the new plans.
Country Manager for Flow Barbados Jenson Sylvester said for some time the company has been spending more time understanding customers’ needs and coming up with solutions to meet them.
He said the recent research revealed that “Barbadians are all about progress” and many of them were looking for new ways to generate income and help their families and they were depending heavily on more affordable connectivity to do so.
“So we took all of this research and took the time to focus on those key elements and came up with a set of full end-to-end propositions,” he said.
“This is a drastic change for our company. What this means is that we are changing how we operationalize our business and how we focus on our customers,” said Sylvester.
The telecoms boss said based on the survey, 74 per cent of the customers wanted an increase in broadband speed while 78 per cent wanted more access to entertainment that was “fit for the entire family”.
“A lot of these customers have been with us for a long time. We have been a part of the Barbadian and Caribbean fabric for years and this is a way to celebrate that and celebrate our customers and give them the value and service that they deserve,” said Sylvester.
Director of Customer Experience Justin Inniss explained that customers could continue to use their exiting bundles, and those who wanted to get one or two services still had the opportunity to do so.
“So what we are going to be doing is grandfathering all of those [existing] bundles – customers who are on them will stay on them until they choose to upgrade,” said Inniss.
For example, in doing a comparison, Barbados TODAY found that customers would in the past choose from three different types of TV services at $50 per month, $85 a month or $105 per month.
In broadband, customers could choose from as little as 40 megabytes for $85 per month to as much as 1,000 megabytes for $610 per month. The landline services range in price from $46 a month to $103 per month, depending on the features requested.
