Virgin Media O2 Business overhauls its approach to partner development

Virgin Media O2 Business Wholesale has revealed a new partner success operating model as part of a range of business changes aimed at improving partner experience and helping them grow.

The model aims to fundamentally reorganise the company’s resources across the wholesale business, which will lead to the introduction of a dedicated team focused on partner success.

Virgin Media O2 Business hopes the new team will build-in changes to the partner experience across the full customer journey, from pre-sales support to end-of-service. The team will support partners through the onboarding process, quoting, and ordering. It will also look beyond the point-of-sale and provide closer guidance through service delivery and helping with in-life changes and renewals.

The company said that work to integrate the new partner success process is underway, with the new team expected to be fully operational by 2023.

“The way the wholesale connectivity channel does business is becoming less transactional and more consultative, and partners across the industry are facing more bespoke requests from their customer base,” said Aaron Briant, head of Wholesale Operations at Virgin Media O2 Business. “They need greater support from their suppliers to meet their individual needs. Our new dedicated partner success team is here to challenge our partner relationships throughout the entire lifecycle, ensuring we create the right environment and support model to foster mutual growth and success.”

The move is in addition to other initiatives introduced by the company over the last 18 months to support the growth of fixed wholesale partners. These include commercial rebound offers to support businesses during the pandemic, investment in high bandwidth capability, and a number of price reductions for new and existing services.

In July last year, the firm also launched UltimateFlex, a new contracting model for wholesale services. The setup offers customers anytime cancellation as standard for managed ethernet, internet access, and high-capacity services. The firm also removed installation charges on wholesale products as part of the model, as well as excess construction charges.