John Linton
While it probably belongs in the "No sh** Sherlock" category of comments I got some amusement from this article today:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/telstra-bigpond-too-slow-and-too-expensive/2007/10/21/1192940903791.html
One comment from the article was:
"Customers of Telstra's BigPond, Australia's largest internet service provider, have given it a resounding thumbs down, saying it costs too much, has poor levels of service and is not as quick as advertised."
Another, more serious part of the survey was:
"But in a concerning trend, overall levels of satisfaction have slumped from 41 per cent two years ago to 29 per cent now."
Almost at the end of the article a "Telstra Spokesperson" responded to this survey result by saying:
"BigPond corporate affairs manager Craig Middleton said Telstra was offering a premium service. "While we'd be concerned at this survey's findings we are outselling our nearest competitor (Optus) four to one,"
What sort of parallel universe does Mr Middleton inhabit to be able to correlate the survey findings with "offering a premium service" and the fact that as the overwhelming majority of broadband users are Telstra customers, the drop in overall user satisfaction with their supplier has dropped from 42% to 29% (30%) in two years?
Like all 'marketing/PR personnel he chooses to use a pointless statistic in some vain attempt to be positive. I would have little doubt that BigPond does sign up 4 times the number of broadband connections than Optus does today. I'm not sure why that statistic would provide any comfort as I'm pretty sure that Telstra would have been signing up something like 20 times more broadband connections than Optus 2 years ago.
OK......cheap shots at easy target over.
The truly shattering statistic is the drop in overall customer satisfaction with broadband service/speed/support (I haven't read the full Choice article yet) from a dreadful 42% to an absolutely abysmal 29%; it's a terrible condemnation of all broadband providers - even allowing for the fact that Telstra provides around 85%+ of all ADSL services either directly via BigPond or via tail circuits supplied to wholesale buyers (thus contributing to the cost problems and, increasingly, some speed and reliability issues).
I wonder whether there is any other product/service offered in Australia that 70% of the users are dissatisfied with?
I actually wonder whether there is such a product/service anywhere in the 'Western World'?
Before either I, or anyone else responsible for delivering broadband services, goes outside and cuts their throats, you have to wonder at another little gem from this article:
"Despite the negative perceptions, 90 per cent of those surveyed had not changed their provider in the past year"
Huh???
Only 14% of the 71% (presumably the 29% who were satisfied didn't change suppliers) that were dissatisfied with their broadbad service actually changed to another provider????
Perhaps the survey questions were skewed to elicit negative responses? ........mmmmmm.....probably not.
Perhaps broadband users are totally unreasonable people who expect far too much?.....mmmmmmm....could be part of the reason.
Maybe it means there are so many lock ins on long contracts and so many of the dissatisfied are new users of the complexities of broadband (the article also says: "In two years, dial-up use has dropped from 47 per cent to 8 per cent) that their dissatisfaction is of their own causing as they grapple with the greter complexity of broadband and they aren't moving because their contract termination conditions don't make that financially viable......yup.....a little more likely....probably much more likely.
What is very certain, in simple commercial terms, is that if any commercial enterprise was supplying a product/service with which 71% of its customers were dissatisfied it would be out of business within a few months.
Maybe all this latest survey shows is that given the opportunity of complaining the human race will do that.
Now where's that patch of really soft sand.......?
PS: Alternatively - if Telstra and Optus stopped wasting millions of dollars every month on advertising and giving away modems and activation fees they could use that money to provide better networks that didn't generate so much dissatisfaction? ....but where's the fun in giving money to engineers to waste on additional circuits when you can be wined and dined by pretty girls with curvaceous figures and come hither smiles?