EXPANDING OUR NETWORK

As Australia’s second-largest telecommunications group, Optus knows that providing a great customer experience starts with a great network. This year we continued to expand our mobile, fixed-line and satellite services.

We accelerated the rollout of our multi-band 4G network, expanding coverage to 86% of Australia’s population, as at 30 April 2015.

During the year, we gained access to the LTE 2600MHz and 700MHz spectrum that we purchased from the Australian Federal Government in the previous year.

With the low-frequency 700MHz band, we expanded our mobile network to more places throughout the vast Australian continent, bringing Optus 4G coverage to many more customers.

The extra high-frequency 2600MHz spectrum enabled us to expand our coverage in regional and selected metropolitan areas.

To show customers exactly how our mobile network is expanding, Optus launched MapBlaster. This online tool offers coverage maps, network experience details, and updates about live or planned outages. Customers can check coverage at their house or any travel destination within Australia. They can see when 4G is coming to their community and what devices are compatible with our 4G network.

We also launched Optus 10 in September 2014, expanding our satellite fleet to six. Optus is the only Australian company to own and operate a satellite fleet. Optus 10 provides backhaul and connection services for regional and remote sites across the Optus mobile network. This enables Optus to further leverage its telecommunications infrastructure, providing broadcast, voice and data connectivity for consumers and enterprise customers in rural and remote parts of Australia.

We intensified our efforts in the fixed-line broadband market. Optus reached an agreement with nbn to transfer ownership of our Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) network to the operator of the National Broadband Network (NBN).

This will help accelerate the rollout of Australia’s NBN, which potentially opens up the Australian fixed-line broadband sector to greater competition, more choice for consumers and opportunities for Optus to gain market share.

To this end, we fast-tracked our NBN customer acquisition strategy by increasing our direct and local marketing in key communities, and providing retail staff with additional training on the NBN to assist customers with the connection process.

IMPROVING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Optus launched a number of other initiatives to improve the customer experience in our brick-and-mortar stores, digital channels and from our contact centres. In 2013, we began reshaping our retail strategy, rebranding the shopfronts and remodelling them with an innovative design. As a result, our stores are more open and boast friendly spaces where customers can interact easily with products and service staff. The new design is popular with customers and won a gold for the best store design in Australia and New Zealand at the 2014 awards run by POPAI, the global association for retail marketing.

Having redesigned the Optus website in 2013, we shifted our focus to trial a “chat to voice” feature that allows customers on web chat to easily call an operator. Customers responded very positively to this trial.

We further improved the My Optus App and My Account web portal to help customers better manage their plans and control their expenses. The My Optus App allows mobile customers to keep track of their calls and data, manage features such as international roaming and get help with Live Chat.

Optus continued to invest in technology and contact centre capabilities to achieve our goal of ensuring every interaction with a customer is tailored to their expectations and needs. We carefully track our Net Promoter Score (NPS) in our efforts to provide an outstanding customer experience. Optus continues to have the best NPS score of any tier one Australian telco. It ended the year with an NPS of +4.

SIMPLIFYING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

We continued to simplify our products and services, delivering better value and greater certainty for customers.

Two years ago, Optus introduced My Plan to help protect customers from bill shock by providing automatic and affordable top-ups instead of charging high fees for excess data and voice usage. In June 2014, we took that a step further by allowing data sharing through our new My Plan Plus service.

My Plan Plus allows customers to share their mobile phones’ included data, with up to five other mobile broadband devices, such as a SIM-ready tablet, pocket WiFi or USB modem. Customers no longer have to chase WiFi hotspots or use battery-draining tethering on their smartphones.

We are the only Australian telco that charges once for data sharing. Our customers pay an affordable set-up fee for each device – there are no additional ongoing charges. They also have peace of mind knowing that if they exceed their data allowance, the automatic top-up costs just A$10 per 1GB.

We also simplified our prepaid plans, so customers only pay for the days they use. Optus responded to customers who wanted longer credit expiry and the option to roll over any unused credits before the expiry date, without having to top-up additional credits. We offer two plans, My Prepaid Daily and My Prepaid Daily Plus, to suit different usage needs.

To make it easy for our customers to replace damaged, lost or stolen mobile devices, we introduced My Cover. This simple insurance plan covers any mobile phone or tablet sold by Optus, including accessories.

We doubled our efforts to increase our fixed-line broadband market share. We added a new unlimited data plan, the Big Home Bundle, and introduced lower promotional prices for our unlimited data bundles to meet consumers’ growing appetite for services delivered over the internet. Customers also have the freedom to bundle their internet connection with a range of telephony and entertainment services that suit their lifestyle.

Broadband data usage is being fuelled by OTT services such as video streaming. We have partnered with Fetch TV to provide internet-based subscription television to our customers for nearly four years. In March 2015, we added Netflix to our portfolio, offering three and six-month subscriptions for new prepaid, broadband and postpaid customers.

Optus is paving the way for an entertainment revolution by giving customers the freedom to view as much entertainment as they want.

DELIVERING ON OUR “YES” COMMITMENT

We renewed our focus on marketing in the financial year, ensuring a year-round presence in the market with the Optus “Live More Yes” campaign. The campaign underpinned all of our on-air, outdoor, direct marketing and online marketing efforts, creating a distinct brand awareness across Australia.

Importantly, our upgraded network, customer experience initiatives and simplified products and services are ensuring Optus is delivering on its brand commitment to “Yes”.

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