TalkTalk Prep Mobile Service and Admits Being Unconsciously Incompetent

The CEO of UK budget broadband and phone provider TalkTalk, Dido Harding, has admitted that two years ago the ISP was letting its customers down while going through a post-Tiscali acquisition period of being “unconsciously incompetent“. But all is well, now that they’ve become “much more consciously incompetent” instead.

According to Hardings candid interview with The Telegraph, the ISP is now trying to be a more mature business by identifying what it got wrong and putting that right. The goal is obviously to become “consciously competent“, yet she admits that the provider is still a “long way from being in the groove“.

Ofcom’s most recent data showed that TalkTalk continues to remain the most complained about ISP in the UK (here), although they have made significant improvements.

Dido Harding, CEO of TalkTalk, said:

“Two years ago, we were unconsciously incompetent, letting our customers down and we didn’t even know it. We are much more consciously incompetent now. When we get things wrong we understand that we’ve got it wrong and we know how to fix it.”

Certainly investors appear to be buying into TalkTalk’s future expectations, which will see it launching a new YouView based TV (IPTV) service later this month (here). This is expected to ship with special premium content and should also be massively discounted. YouView’s subscription-free set-top-boxes retail for between £200-£300 a pop and TalkTalk aims to undercut this within their broadband and phone bundles.

One challenge to the plan could come from TalkTalk’s focus on the budget market, which compares with BSkyB (Sky Broadband) and Virgin Media’s focus on premium TV content. But the ISP also admits that its main goal with YouView will be to retain the customers they already have.

This week TalkTalk hopes to push forward again by launching a new mobile phone service (contracts) alongside a range of handsets. The related packages are expected to cost from just £5 per month and we’ll have more on this once the details have been revealed.