Altogether, 3,000 specialist in-store experts will provide face to face and personalised support to smartphone customers in 1,300 shops, across 13 countries by the end of the first half of 2011.
The service, which is paid-for to provide smartphone customers access to technical advice and guidance, will include: 3,000 specially trained customer service representatives offering guidance and support across handsets and operating systems in shops across the European footprint; 300 shops will create Care Corners, specific areas dedicated to smart care services where customers can get paid-for specialist smartphone support.
Additionally, the service will provide ‘Get Started with Smartphone’, whereby Orange retail staff help customers set up their phones for their use, and ‘Copy & Keep’, a data content and back-up service that allows phone to phone content transfer or storage.
Expert Assistance currently supports the most popular operating systems including Android, Symbian, Apple, RIM, and Windows Phone 7.
Expert Assistance launched commercially in June 2010; Orange hopes to serve one million customers in-store under the expanded service by the end of 2011.
Philippe Bernard, executive vice president for sales and care, commented: “Orange Care is the most comprehensive set of care services available on the market today. We believe it is truly innovative and differentiating us to customers in the market. The success of the Expert Assistance hotline to date indicates that we are on the right the track, but our expectation is that revenues from our point of sale Expert Assistance will exceed internet and smartphone Expert Assistance Hotline revenues in 2011.”
Orange Care is a comprehensive end to end portfolio of services that looks after the customer throughout their lifetime with Orange, covering Expert Assistance, Security, VIP services and Recycle and Reward. Orange secured three million monthly subscribers to Orange Care by the end of 2010, its first year of operation, and expects to achieve 10 million customers overall by the end of 2011.