Management & facts

We strive to offer our customers impeccable service. We work constantly to improve our service, with the aim of ensuring our customers enjoy a positive customer experience. Our approach in this regard is to devote more time to customers, answer their queries on the spot and with a smile, and be there when they need us.

Very active service in 2022
In 2022 in Germany, we had a total of 30 000 employees providing service to our mobile and fixed-network customers, making a total of 90 million personal contacts in the process. Also in the year under review, callers to our service hotline had to wait less than two minutes on average to speak with a service representative. In the same year, the percentage of service technician appointments that failed to take place was considerably less than one percent. Our good service is paying off: Since 2017, we have been able to cut the number of customer complaints in Germany by a total of 80 percent.

Arranging appointments with Deutsche Telekom
The online appointment booking tool(only available in German) is an easy way for customers to book their consultations and service appointments. They can decide themselves what format they prefer, either a consultation in a Telekom Shop, from the comfort of their own home, or an appointment with a service technician from Deutsche Telekom. Customers can also use the tool to arrange an appointment for queries which can be resolved via phone call or video chat.

Customers can see when to expect their service technician with a tap thanks to the “Mein Telekom Techniker” (“My Deutsche Telekom Service Technician”) app . They receive a text message to remind them of their planned appointments beforehand. The text includes a link to near-real-time updates on the technician’s probable arrival time. If customers experience a sudden change of plans, they can change scheduled appointments with just a few taps. And when a job is being performed, it is even possible to monitor the service technician’s progress step by step. This can be helpful, for example, when excavation work is required.

Always available – even in a crisis
We are always there for our customers – even in challenging times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When the Telekom Shops had to close their doors during the lockdowns in 2021 and part of 2022, around 900 of our shop employees were on hand for our customers, working from home voluntarily. Our field service staff also continued to provide service calls to our customers throughout Germany, with infrastructure-sales and “Servicemobil” vehicles.

Our employees were also on the scene right away when the flooding disaster in the Ahr valley happened in July 2021. There were volunteers handing out free cell phones and power banks to those affected, for example. Customer service answered the inhabitants’ questions on site and mobile service stations regularly offered fixed periods of availability for consultations.

We also reacted swiftly after Russia began its war of aggression against Ukraine in early 2022: on top of their day-to-day work, our sales and service employees helped out with initiatives such as distributing free SIM cards to refugees at the Telekom Shops and central points of contact – sometimes even outside of their working hours. They were on hand to respond to any questions or issues from refugees. Employees have joined forces to coordinate various relief measures and are continuing this work together.

Customer service for the region – and from the region
We have established a total of 14 regional centers, known as “Regiocenters,” in major cities nationwide, with the last opening in April 2022. These centers’ service teams serve customers’ needs throughout their regions, including customers in both urban and rural areas. Each such center offers a full range of service expertise and products, from back-office support and technical customer service to field service, stores, and equipment. Customer calls are automatically forwarded to the relevant Regiocenter, which will be able to directly handle all types of concerns – mobile network, fixed network, service disruption, or a field service request.

Promoting competence
We continuously provide our service employees with training on products and services. They can learn about and try out the latest solutions in specially equipped rooms at our service centers. We have also intensified our personal coaching by team leaders in everyday work. Knowledge databases and digital tools are enabling our employees to address customers' concerns more and more quickly.

The high quality of our services has been independently verified by numerous successes in tests. For example, in 2022 the business magazine Focus-Money once again honored us as a "Service King." For its awards, Focus-Money conducted a survey of over 314 000 people, asking which companies they thought gave them the best service. Awards such as these show that we are on the right track.

Improving our contact and process quality
We want to offer all customers the best-possible service experience. To meet that goal, several million responses from our customers are annually collected and analyzed by our quality management team. Customer satisfaction and resolving their request on first contact are our top priorities.

Our surveys are conducted either directly after a contact (for example, via the hotline, in a shop, on a field service call, or after an online inquiry by email or chat) or a completed process (for example, after service provisioning).

If a customer tells us in a survey that their request has not yet been resolved, a callback offer is made to clarify the request once and for all. The results of customer surveys are also used for internal training of our customer advisors.

We use the TRI*M index  to gauge customer retention and regularly participate in benchmarking. The recorded data is based on a customer survey conducted in all markets and segments (except T-Mobile US). To measure the TRI*M value, customers are asked four standardized questions – for example, whether they would recommend Deutsche Telekom to others; their answers are compiled in a key performance indicator. The TRI*M value for the Deutsche Telekom Group is calculated as an overall value from the individual measurement results of the countries or segments.

At the end of the year under review, the indicator for the Group (excluding T-Mobile US) came in at 76.0 points versus an adjusted value of 72.6 points at the start of the year (both determined on a comparable basis). As a result, the index value improved, and we firmly achieved our Group aim of increasing it slightly. The Germany and T-Systems operating segments contributed to the very positive development in particular with significant improvements in customer loyalty. The EU segment also contributed to these results with a strong increase in customer loyalty.

At 71.7 points, the TRI*M index for Germany is significantly higher than in the previous year (69.2). It is also considerably higher than the comparable figures for the competition when it comes to both consumers and business customers. We also experienced a slight improvement in our EU business segment, from 68.8 to 70.2, while the TRI*M index for T-Systems actually increased to 96 from a baseline of 87 points. In sum, we once again firmly reached our overall goal of a slight increase for the Group as a whole. Thanks to the figures achieved at Telekom Deutschland and T-Systems in particular, we are in a leading position which we aim to maintain in 2023. Our aim for the EU segment is to achieve a slight improvement.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty scores are factored into both the long-term variable remuneration scheme for our board members and, to an extent, the performance assessments of our managers, meaning some of their variable salary components are linked to these ratings.