Today’s Guardian carries an interview with BT’s chief executive, Ben Verwaayen, which claims that the Dutchman replies personally to emails from irate customers.

It’s true. I’ve had a few email exchanges with BT’s boss, most recently last June. We’d just got back from holiday, to discover my in-laws were at the end of their tether. Their BT line had developed a fault and as their BT home security alarm was linked to the line, it had been going off every five minutes for days. BT had proved singularly unhelpful in sorting the problem. We emailed Ben Verwaayen that Sunday afternoon, and got a personal reply within 10 minutes. His office arranged for an engineer to call the following morning and the problem was solved.

I know you shouldn’t have to contact the chief executive to get decent service but Verwaayen clearly cares about his customers.