Telstra to spend $3bn on improving customer experience

Telstra has committed to investing up to an extra $3bn towards improving the customer experience following the recent spate of high-profile network outages.

The operator plans to increase its capex to sales ratio for each of the next three years to around 18%, the highest since the 2008–09 financial year when the operator was deep into the rollout of its 3G network.

With the additional investment, Telstra plans to retire legacy backend systems and invest in new standards and technologies including network virtualisation, voice over LTE and the IoT.

Short-term actions to reduce customer pain points will be followed by more significant investments to improve the customer experience based on digitalisation.

Taking advantage of network architecture advances such as virtualisation, the company will aim to build a dynamic and programmable next-generation network.

On the mobile side, the operator will invest in preparing its networks for the anticipated standardisation of 5G in 2020. The company will also make investments in its fixed network services to affect the burgeoning growth in data consumption in recent years.

Customer-focused digitalisation efforts will include expanding sales and service channels to allow customers to interact with the company on their terms and introducing capability to pre-empt common issues faced by subscribers.

“We have plans for consumers, small and medium-sized businesses, domestic and international enterprise users, governments and our wholesale customers. The investment is about setting the pace for the network and company of the future, just as we have done in each of the previous network generations,” Telstra CEO Andrew Penn said.

“The opportunity is clear as average monthly data consumption on our networks increased seven-fold over the past five years, with mobile traffic growing almost nine-fold in the same period. We are now accommodating and anticipating growth in the number of connected sensors and devices as well as specialised applications and services.”

The investments come as Telstra seeks to get back into customers’ good graces following a series of recent network outages, including during free data days offered to make up for previous outages.

Image courtesy of TRIGA Systems International under CC