BT Secures £2 Million in Cost-Savings by Democratising Data with Qlik

London – Qlik® today announced that BT, the UK’s largest fixed line broadband and mobile service provider, has successfully democratised data with the Qlik® analytics platform to drive improved business outcomes.

The 18-month data transformation journey has seen BT’s Consumer unit work with Qlik to put data directly into the hands of more than 1,200 consumer team members. With customer data available in Qlik Sense® dashboards, BT has encouraged data-driven decision-making among employees, resulting in £2 million in cost-savings for the organisation.

BT, one of the UK’s largest communication groups, initially relied on Excel for data analysis, using just five per cent of the data from its 30 million customers for decision-making. Its goal was to deploy an intelligent analytics architecture that would enable employees to access market insights in one location. This equipped teams to cross-sell, up-sell and re-engage customers to deliver a brilliant, differentiated customer experience and to grow value through brand loyalty.

“The concept for BT’s analytics ecosystem was born out of a need to increase the volume of data we were using to take more informed actions,” said Claire Ellison, Acting Director of Data and Decision Science at BT. “Our goal was to ensure that data is relevant, accessible, easy to consume, and critically, able to answer customer questions in a timely manner.”

Consumer dashboards, created by BT in Qlik, have facilitated self-service analytics among employees, meaning team members can access and analyse data when and where needed to make fully informed decisions. In fact, the consumable analytics dashboards enable employees to answer any business question in six clicks or less – something that would have previously taken a data analyst weeks to access.

Consumer dashboards provide a complete view of customer household products across all brands: BT, EE and Plusnet. This birds-eye view of customer touchpoints has also improved customer service and accelerated the Fibre to the Premise (FTTP) rollout programme, enabling teams to drill-down into postcodes that are filtered by FTTP eligibility to identify customer acquisition opportunities, review bolt-on performance, and tailor customer communications based on campaign analysis. In a market as saturated and competitive as telecoms, a world-class customer experience is a key way BT can differentiate itself from the competition.

“We want strong relationships with our customers, so it is important that we use consistent tone of voice whether they browse our websites, call our contact centres, visit our stores, or any combination of these. We want our customers to feel that every interaction is personal and consistent. It’s personalisation at scale,” added Ellison.

“In transforming its data strategy, BT has not only enabled employees to take more informed actions, it has also provided the consumer team with a complete view of household product purchases for a better understanding of demand and improved customer service,” says Andrew Spence, VP and General Manager, Northern Europe for Qlik. “Putting data in the hands of its employees has empowered BT’s Consumer unit to embrace a culture of informed action.” 

Growing a data literate workforce

BT has ambitious plans to not only expand the use of data within the organisation, but to also give customers access to their own analytics. To do this, BT plans to grow a data literate workforce, so every team member is equipped with the skills to analyse data and pass insights onto customers.

BT’s Consumer unit has implemented the #GetQualified programme to support colleagues’ continuous learning journey, and plan for future data expansion using the Qlik Continuous Classroom, a digital resource for self-paced data literacy skills training. The self-serve insight squad has also introduced internal BT events on the importance of data-driven decision-making, as well as running Qlikathon competitions for analysts. Through these events, they are creating a community of Qlik champions, whose role it is to encourage further adoption of data in employees’ day-to-day roles.

“The support that Qlik provided in helping us to grow the data literacy skills of our workforce demonstrated to us that it is a true partner to BT, not just a software provider,” continued Ellison. “We want to equip teams with the skills to not just source data around customers, but be able to analyse that data and tell a powerful story with it. Qlik has provided us with a platform to move from analytics infancy to maturity. The continued implementation support and engagement has helped us make data storytelling a priority for our team and further entrench a culture of informed action at BT.”

About Qlik

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private SaaS company, Qlik provides an end-to-end, real-time data integration and analytics cloud platform to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik does business in more than 100 countries and serves over 38,000 active customers around the world.

About BT

BT Group is the UK's leading telecommunications and network provider and a leading provider of global communications services and solutions, serving customers in 180 countries. Its principal activities in the UK include the provision of fixed voice, mobile, broadband and TV (including Sport) and a range of products and services over converged fixed and mobile networks to consumer, business and public-sector customers. For its global customers, BT provides managed services, security and network and IT infrastructure services to support their operations all over the world. BT consists of four customer-facing units: Consumer, Enterprise, Global and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Openreach, which provides access network services to over 650 communications provider customers who sell phone, broadband and Ethernet services to homes and businesses across the UK.

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