Telcos need chief customer officers: iiNet

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).