Telstra re-considers Bigpond support strategy

Newly-recruited head of Telstra's broadband services, Justin Milne, has moved to dampen fears that the company would use its technical support service to extract additional revenue from customers.

Speculation that Telstra would seek to recoup a higher proportion of its support costs from customers arose after a broadband community user site reported that the telecommunications heavyweight had commissioned a market research firm to ask Bigpond customers whether they would be prepared to pay a monthly surcharge for faster technical support.

Milne said that support was one of Telstra's biggest cost centres but added that Bigpond didn't have any plans to change its support service "anytime soon."

"No-one should get tense about any of this. It's all about getting feedback from customers. Something I hope to do more of," said Milne in written advice to one of the site's editors.

Milne said he had reservations about offering a premium service as it would create a sub-class of support as a consequence.

However he hinted that Telstra might create low-price, self-supported plans for technically savvy users.

Telstra is also prospecting for a specialist support services market. Milne said it would be "interesting" to know if its customers would be prepared to pay for helpdesk services unrelated to their Telstra service, such as home wireless networks.

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Talkback 4 comments

    Fine, they can go ahead and ch ...MrDamage -- 06/02/03

    Fine, they can go ahead and charge for "premium" service.

    I'll just log the dates, times and durations of outages, and then subtract an appropriate amount from the invoice.

    If they have a problem with that, I'll charge them $95/hour or part thereof to discuss the matter with me on the phone.

    Pay for the useless support th ...Anonymous -- 06/02/03

    Pay for the useless support that BigPond provide ? You've got to be joking. I had BigPond ADSL for over a year and whenever I had a problem with the service and reported a fault they failed to even get an idea of what they were being told. Must have been too technical when I told them what the problem was.

    Humph, Twaddle & balderdas ...Keith Styles (A very,very disgruntled user) -- 07/02/03

    Humph, Twaddle & balderdash. WHY don't I believe him? Like a snake in the grass, he & all his ilke at T(H)elstra, speak with forked tongue!
    Tech Support NEVER understands a problem and ALWAYS tries to pass the buck to my PC software or someone elses network which they don't control. Why do all phone companies juggle with the truth so much?????? Its difficult to decide who cops out the most,...phone companies or doctors.

    Good Profit for Telstra. The c ...Anonymous -- 07/02/03

    Good Profit for Telstra. The can continue to run down the quality of the network and generate additional profits the worse the network becomes. Only the numb nuts at Telstra could come up with a sick idea like this and think they will get away with it

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