NBN Co: Efforts on customer experience bearing fruit

NBN Co welcomes the acknowledgment of a reduction in complaints about services delivered over the nbn™ access network in today’s Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) annual report, following a year of significant investment in customer experience initiatives.

The TIO report shows the number of complaints about retail services delivered over the nbn™ access network was lower in the second half of the financial year compared to the first six months. In particular:

• Nearly a thirty-three per cent reduction in the number of complaints regarding ‘connection or changing provider’¹
• Seven per cent decrease in the number of complaints about ‘service quality’²

The decline follows a number of targeted efforts to improve the customer experience including:

• New wholesale discount pricing bundles to help retailers deliver higher speed plans with increased bandwidth;
• Pausing the sales of HFC services to allow necessary optimisation works to help improve the quality of the network and reduce faults;
• NBN Co and retailers working together to complete installations more efficiently;
• Improving the ability to install nbn™ equipment correctly the first time through better customer communications and in-field training; and
• Introducing new tools to help better diagnose and understand the cause of faults on the network.

NBN Co’s own data shows that of the complaints made to the TIO about retail services delivered over the nbn™ access network in the year to 30 June 2018, only five per cent  were sent to the company as complaints to resolve.

NBN Co Chief Customer Officer, Brad Whitcomb said:

“The rollout of the nbn™ access network represents one of the biggest and most complex transformations in Australia’s history. It’s a huge undertaking, so it’s pleasing to see the collaboration between NBN Co and the wider industry to help improve the customer experience is starting to bear fruit.

“Over the past year in particular, we focussed our efforts to improve those aspects of the customer experience within our control, keeping the consumer at the forefront of our decisions.

“The outcomes of these efforts can be seen in our latest monthly progress report which shows 94 per cent of installations of nbn™ equipment in our control was completed right the first time compared with 86 per cent a year earlier.

“In September 2018, 97 per cent of all orders were connected within agreed timeframes with retail service providers, up from 92 per cent this time last year*.

“Average bandwidth congestion on the network (excluding Sky Muster™ satellite) has also decreased significantly to 38 minutes per week per service compared with more than four hours a year ago per week per service, despite some fluctuations during this period.

“We acknowledge there is always more work to be done to drive better experiences for Australians as they transition from the old network to the new network. We remain committed to working with industry to do so,” Mr Whitcomb said.

* This metric excludes Priority Assistance connections and Accelerated Connections)

Notes to editors

1. The number of complaints about ‘connection or changing provider’ fell by almost 33 per cent when comparing the 8,711 (reported as 8,757 in the TIO’s December 2017 Six Month Update) recorded in the first half of the financial year to the 5,878) in the second half of the financial year. This equates to a modest drop by 0.2 in the rate of complaints about ‘connection or changing provider’ when comparing 9.2 complaints per thousand premises added to the network in the first half to 9.0 over the second half of the year. See note 3 for more information about the different methodologies in the TIO’s Annual Report and December 2017 Six Month Update. See note 5 for more information about the number of premises added to the network.
2. he number of complaints about ‘service quality’ fell by seven per cent from 14,000 (reported as 14,055 in the TIO’s December 2017 Six Month Update) in the first half to December 2017 to 13,008 in the second half to July 2018. This equates to a 22 per cent decrease in the rate of complaints when comparing 4.1 complaints per thousand premises on the network in the first half of the financial year to 3.2 complaints per thousand on the network in the second half of the financial year. See note 3 for more information about the different methodologies in the TIO’s Annual Report and December 2017 Six Month Update. See note 4 for more information about the number of premises on the network.
3. The TIO report states that "Complaints that have been cancelled within the financial year are not included in this report. If a complaint has been reassigned from NBN to another network within the financial year, it will no longer appear in NBN statistics. As a result, the first half numbers are slightly lower than those published in the six monthly report.” For more information on the methodologies of the TIO statistics, please refer to the TIO Annual Report.
4. In the 12 months to 30 June 2018, NBN Co increased activations by 1,592,737 premises, equating to more than 4 million (4,035,870) total active premises on the nbn™ access network.
5. In the same period, NBN Co added 2.4 million premises to the network footprint, equating to 8.1 million Ready For Service (RFS). More than 7 million of those were Ready To Connect (RTC), representing more than one in two homes and businesses across the nation able to access high-speed broadband.
6. The nbn™ access network is wholesale only. NBN Co supplies services and infrastructure to phone and internet providers, who sell plans to end users.