Greater security and quality for Deutsche Telekom customers - Deutsche Telekom launches security initiative - study shows key role of telecommunications - Making Tomorrow Happen
_________________________________________________________
Deutsche Telekom is launching a security initiative for the Internet. "Step by step, we want to make all services and products provided by our company more secure." Kai-Uwe Ricke, Deutsche Telekom's Chairman, emphasized this at the company's 14th Internationales Presse Kolloquium in Bonn, which was held under the motto "10 Years of Deutsche Telekom - Making Tomorrow Happen."
T-Online is taking the first step: Straight off in the first quarter of 2005, all T-Online e-mail boxes will be equipped with free and individual virus and spam protection. T-Online's e-mail box virus protection will automatically check all incoming e-mails in the future, and any identified viruses, worms or Trojan horses will be deleted. Cleaned e-mails will be delivered with the name of the sender, the reference line and the name of the virus. E-mails identified as spam can be deleted from the server immediately upon request. This prevents customers having to sort through annoying e-mails and helps avoid computer crashes resulting from virus attacks.
T-Mobile will also continue to be actively involved in developing a solution to protect cell phones and mobile computers from viruses.
For the first time, Mr. Ricke formulated quality promises for Deutsche Telekom customers. He said that, from now on, all customer queries must be processed to the customer's utmost satisfaction and telephone enquiries must be answered in a competent and friendly manner 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Mr. Ricke also said e-mails should be answered within 24 hours and letters within two working day of receipt. In T-Punkt shops, customers should not have to wait more than five minutes, and new T-Mobile cards should be activated and thus be useable a maximum of one hour after purchase. For faulty cell phones, Deutsche Telekom will lend customers a replacement for the duration of the repair.
"We want to increase customer satisfaction considerably", stressed Mr. Ricke in front of 240 journalists from 15 countries at Deutsche Telekom Headquarters in Bonn. He said that Deutsche Telekom will therefore consistently improve processes and cooperation in the Group in order to provide excellent services,
as information and telecommunications technology will also play a key role in the further development of societal trends in the future. This was the result of a study conducted by RAND Europe, which was commissioned by the Deutsche Telekom Group for its 10th anniversary as a stock corporation. RAND's "Living tomorrow" study found that the mega-trends of the next ten years will include the possibility of being permanently connected and constantly present, which could, for example, help bring together family members who live apart. According to Dr. Martin van der Mandele, President of RAND Europe, important topics for the future will include more individual, less intrusive methods of treatment in the field of health care, distance learning and life-long learning in the field of education, and the ability to reconcile family life and work.
Participants at Deutsche Telekom Headquarters on the Rhine worked in four focus groups to discuss innovations and possible ways of implementing these in the topic areas: mobile office, flexible customer solutions, life and living in the future, and healthier living through networking.