Driving world-class operational experiences

2021 has seen us build on the groundwork of 2020. As always, there have been challenges, especially considering the significant changes of the last year, but even through this we progressed on a number of initiatives.

95% of Telstra fibre orders delivered on-time

With ~250,000 km of fibre network to operate and maintain, and tens of thousands of orders a year to deliver, Telstra fibre-based delivery is a big, complex operation with many moving parts. However, we know the importance that certainty of delivery times has for you as well as the role it plays in cultivating a positive experience for your end customers.

With this in mind, we’ve worked on significant improvements to fibre delivery, driving consistent on-time delivery of services from 75% for most of FY19 and FY20 to over 90% of orders throughout FY21. On-Time Delivery of Wideband services is currently tracking at 95%.

Greater certainty to customers through improved communications

A key part of improving our customer experience is better communication. We know that more complete, up-to-date, and usable information is important to you- that is why we introduced real-time push notifications for order updates. We stood up the email notifications capability to over 160 customers in four weeks during the pandemic, making it possibly the fastest IT stand-up we’ve delivered to our Wholesale customers. This means customers can now stay informed without necessitating manual interactions like email or phone calls.

As of now, real-time push email notifications for order updates have been adopted by over 180 of our customers. We took the time to hear feedback from many of our customers on what they needed next, and in April we enhanced these notifications by simplifying their format and making them easier to understand. Coming up, we have push and pull order status notifications via API launching in July 2021

Now, partway into this year, we have seen almost 100% of customers who acquire Telstra fibre products taking up real time order updates via email.

Improving the experience of resolving issues with newly connected services.

Our customers have told us that the support experience for issues commissioning a newly completed service is critical for resolving issues in a timely, efficient manner. So, in February we made a new Customer Commissioning Support process available to support customers who may be experiencing issues activating their newly completed Ethernet Access or Managed Leased Line fibre service.

We found that by working directly with our customers we could resolve 79% of issues on the same day and 98% of issues within 5 days, significantly faster than the 8-day average previously provided.

As a result, in April 2021, we have made Customer Commissioning support an ongoing offering. In additional we have expended the support to include 3 more products, Wholesale Wavelength Service, Wholesale Business Internet and Telstra Wholesale Internet, targeting coverage of all the major Wholesale fibre product offerings.

Investing in better service assurance outcomes

To achieve long term service assurance benefits in a number of areas, we’re investing capital in some projects inspired by customer feedback and the insights we gained from the pandemic’s initial impact.

We’re expanding the TW Customer Hub self-diagnosis tools to deliver service testing for Telstra fibre services- Telstra copper services and NBN Co services being available since December 2020. These tools enable customers to troubleshoot and test services in real time, avoiding the reliance on us to investigate and respond.

We’re also targeting an upgrade to the MyNetworkTool™ by widening the scope of Telstra fibre products that can be tested and improving functionality. Customers will be able to make use of the tool’s self-service capabilities to test for any alarms along the network path associated with that service, prior to logging a fault. We are in the discovery phase of this project with view to launch in July 2021.

Also, our Linx-Online Service (LOLS) assurance platform will be replaced with the TW Hub for assurance ticketing in the first week of July, enabling integration of testing and fault reporting. This streamlined approach will allow a failed test to be automatically progressed to a fault, as well as enabling diagnostics for real time troubleshooting with your end customers. This is another example of how we have co-developed solutions with customers to ensure they meet real business needs, and we thank all customers who have provided us with valuable feedback.

Our continued ambition for further improvements

We know how fundamental service delivery, assurance and order fulfilment is to our customers’ success and we are very grateful for your ongoing partnership and collaboration on new initiatives.

It’s these partnerships that excite me as we head into the second half of 2021 and 2022. We look forward to another year in which we can work together to reach the next level of service and delivery performance.