Telcos need chief customer officers: iiNet

By David Havyatt on Apr 21, 2011 12:59 PM
Filed under Telco/ISP

Halves number of complaints at purchased AAPT business.

Telcos should employ chief customer officers alongside CFOs, CIOs and CTOs, said iiNet's general manager of customer service Paul Cahill.

Addressing the IQPC Customer Experience Event in Sydney, Cahill said that iiNet has halved complaints to the TIO coming from the customer base acquired last year from AAPT.

He said two business processes had been driving a lot of the complaints. The first was a $65 reconnection charge, even if the disconnection had followed a simple mistake. The second was an outsourced recontract campaign that saw 45 percent of customers recontracted leave within three months.

“Those are the kinds of decisions you get if you let the CFO dictate customer strategy,” he said.

The Perth ISP was the envy of many in the industry with high net promoter scores published with its financial results. Cahill revealed that these were transactional scores (taken straight after a customer contact) and relationship scores (taken from quarterly surveys).

Telcos need chief customer officers: iiNet

3 comments in this discussion

"Our company could do with a CSO. They seem hell bent on alienating all their clients for the benefit of a few extra bucks."

By Pilotyoda

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iinet, customer service, chief customer officer

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Comments: 3

asmith May 3, 2011 11:35 PM	iiNet halved their complaints by simply jettisoning the poor quality customers that AAPT attracted with their residential unlimited plans. Guess where all of those complaints have turned up now? TPG. It's hardly a story of great customer service, more of the smart business acumen we've come to expect from Michael Malone.
adavion May 4, 2011 9:26 AM	@asmith: AAPT offered unlimited contracts because it owned its own backhaul that went (if you include TCNZ's share of SCC) all the way to the USA. This meant AAPT could offer zero marginal cost backhaul (because its pipes weren't full. Since the terms of access to Telstra's ULLs under its USO provides fixed monthly costs, again zero marginal cost of data in the access network. Therefore AAPT could offer all you can eat because it was not going to run out of capacity. Meanwhile iiNet owns zero backhaul. It leases backhaul from the likes of Telstra, Optus, TPG (formerly PIPE), Nextgen and of course AAPT. The fact that iiNet booted these subscribers reveals a key weakness in the iiNet business model which will leave it quite exposed in a post NBN world.
Pilotyoda May 4, 2011 12:12 PM	Our company could do with a CSO. They seem hell bent on alienating all their clients for the benefit of a few extra bucks.