EE may be seeking to close its relations with two of the high street’s top mobile phone retailers and pulling its network services from Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U.
According to The Telegraph, Everything Everywhere – or EE for short, plans to offer a more direct customer service experience to its existing and future clientele by cutting out the middle man, depending solely on its own outlets (of which there are currently around 700 in the UK) to sell services and smartphones – including the speedy 4G data network which it was at the forefront of delivering to UK mobile owners.
Cutting ties with the newly formed Dixons Carphone will remove EE products from the 2,950 store locations currently operating under the separate banners of partners Dixons and Carphone Warehouse. On the other side of the coin, this will put Dixons Carphone on hold as far as boasting a full range of available network tariffs and contracts under one roof.
This may seem like risky business for EE, especially considering in the aftermath of its own merging of Orange and T-Mobile when up to 80 of its individual network’s stores were affected by closure when the business streamlined. This said, despite losing a few links in the chain back in early 2013, EE still reportedly has the support of 30 million customers across the UK so they must be feeling pretty confident that this is a move that will work.
Do you hold a contract with EE and does this news affect your view of the EE customer experience?