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Two years ago, if you needed your Bell Canada high-speed Internet fixed at your home, you could expect to wait on average 76.3 hours. A year ago, you would still be cooling your heels for 39.4 hours.

Yesterday, the nation's largest communications company launched two new service programs that promise faster repair and installation times as part of a 100-day corporate transformation plan announced in July.

Bell Canada officials said the initiative is more than window dressing. They emphasized that the program has involved spending "tens of millions" of dollars and hiring hundreds of technicians and call centre staff over the past three months, at the same time as 2,500 middle-management jobs were chopped to cut costs by $300-million annually.

The company has instituted what it terms "same day next day" service for free repairs to its residential phone, television and high-speed Internet products. In most cases, customers who call before 11 a.m. will have a technician at their home the same day, said Kevin Crull, president of residential services.

For installation of TV, Internet or phone services, Bell is promising next-day delivery for customers who pay $60.

The new programs have involved changes to processes and information systems inside the company. Call centre operators are now able to connect directly with trucks in the field and work off a live calendar of appointments. Previously, operators were told to plug customers' requests into a standard "cycle time" that was often several days, Mr. Crull said.

"Before, we would say, 'Today's Wednesday, it's okay to give a time on Friday morning and then fix it on Thursday afternoon, because we beat expectations,' " he said.

Unfortunately, customers were often not available for unexpected arrivals and trucks would find no one home. "Now we will be very specific," Mr. Crull said.

The most dramatic improvement in wait times is for Internet service, he added. "We know now that of our services that's the one that people are relying on almost more vitally than their phone service."

Last quarter, Bell Canada lost 9 per cent of its residential phone lines from a year earlier. It also lost some of its Internet subscribers, on a quarter-to-quarter basis, a fact the company attributed to "ongoing customer service issues," as well as a maturing market and discounting by competitors.

The new service plans put Bell in step with some of its competitors. Rogers Cable Inc. says it offers same or next day service for most repairs and installation. Fees may or may not apply for installation, depending on certain marketing campaigns, but the company does not have a premium service fee, spokeswoman Nancy Cottenden said.

"It seems like it's industry standard," she said of the Bell plan.

In July, when George Cope took the reins at BCE Inc., he began a 100-day plan to try to make the company more nimble and more focused on customer service. In addition to the job cuts he implemented, Mr. Cope has signed off on a massive new branding and marketing campaign and decided on a strategy to upgrade infrastructure by delivering more fibre optics into customer neighbourhoods.

BCE INC. (BCE)

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