Internode has topped a list of Australian ISPs when it comes to overall service, while market leader Telstra, along with TPG and Optus, have been ranked among the lowest out of the country’s top 10 telcos.
But one expert believes while these ratings do reflect the nature of the industry and customer satisfaction, there are more elements consumers and businesses consider that go into a decision to buy access from an ISP.
“I do think the smaller ISPS tend to do better in these kinds of surveys. It’s easy to give blanket ratings, but I think another way would be to segment the market and look at the ratings and the importance of each of those,” Telsyte research director Foad Fadaghi says.
“For some segments of the population, price is much more important than speed, and so forth. An overall figure is interesting no doubt, but I think every provider has its strong points and its weaker points.”
Internode has topped the list for customer satisfaction with five stars, a perfect score, followed by Westnet, iiNet and iPrimus on four stars. TPG, AAPT, Netspace, Optus, Dodo and Telstra were all given three stars.
Dodo won on price, followed by Internode, TPG and iiNet on four stars. Telstra only ranked three stars, along with AAPT, Optus and Netspace. Telstra is well-known for being one of the most expensive providers, along with its relatively low download quotas.
For customer service, Westnet customers gave their ISP a perfect score, while Internode, iiNet and iPrimus all received four stars. However, Optus, Telstra and TPG all received three stars for tech support.
This rating is reflected in a recent statement by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which is currently investigating how telcos can reduce complaints relating to customer support and technical inquiries.
Internode is well-known within the industry for its emphasis on customer satisfaction, and has attempted to keep up with larger rivals by introducing new products such as a terabyte plan, and introducing wireless hotspots in city centres, Canster notes.
“Clearly popular with its customers, Internode led the field in nearly all criteria, including overall satisfaction, speed, and reliability of service, billing and download quota value for money,” the company said.
But Fadaghi says while the larger telcos may have ranked lower in many of these categories, there is a bigger issue at hand and this is represented by Telstra’s large market share.
“Over the years, the bigger telcos have worn poorer ratings than the smaller ones, but the largest still have the market share. And why is that so? People get their broadband from providers based on a number of different factors.”
“Bundling is very important, and so on. For instance, Dodo ranks very well on price, but their brand’s value proposition may not match mine, etc.”
The survey does reveal some companies may be hitting their market when it comes to their key advertising proposition, but fail in other areas. For instance, TPG ranks very highly on price with four stores, but in customer satisfaction only manages to score three stars.
Canstar Blue manager Rebecca Logan says the survey of 2,500 customers asked each respondent to mark each section individually, rather than as a whole.
“It looks from the results that Internode has performed in every category quite well. Whereas with other players, we see they may be doing well in some areas but not in others. I think anecdotal evidence suggests this is what we expected to see.”
“Although, it should be noted that in order to achieve three stars you still need a 60% satisfaction rating. Telstra has received three stars in many areas, and that’s not necessarily a very low score.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
