As well as the Call Centre Ranking results below, ACXPA Members also have access to a range of additional insights, including all the monthly reports, trend data, additional performance metrics, a downloadable spreadsheet and lots more!
Internet Providers August 2023 Call Centre Rankings
August 2023 was the inaugural launch of our monthly Internet Providers Call Centre Rankings report that assesses the performance of Internet Providers/Retailers in Australia each month.
You can read more about the assessment criteria and methodology here, but the quick version is we make random calls to Internet Providers and then assess both accessibility (how easy it was to connect) and the customer service/quality of the interaction when speaking to a live agent.
Key findings from the Internet Providers August 2023 Call Centre Rankings:
- Average wait times for the internet sector were the lowest across the entire call centre industry (0:51 minutes) with Optus (0:06 minutes), Aussie Broadband (00:08 minutes) and iiNet (00:11 minutes) all having low wait times through to TPG (02:52 minutes) the longest wait time on average.
- Whilst average wait times were low across the sector, the customer experience when connecting to a live agent was rated as ‘Below Standard’. Aussie Broadband was the top performer (71.1%) with Dodo (40.6%) and OPTUS (43.6%) rated with the lowest customer experience.
- The Internet providers sector was the only industry sector to answer 100% of all the mystery shopping calls made within 10 minutes.
- 60% of internet providers kept their IVR menus short (less than two layers) taking customers, on average, 00:31 minutes to navigate through the various options before being placed in the queue. Optus and Telstra had the highest layers (3) with TPG taking the longest to navigate (00:49 minutes).
- The ‘Engage’ competency was ranked the lowest of all quality competencies (41.7%), with ‘Educate’ ranked the highest at 65.3%.
- Telstra was the only provider that was trying to shift customers to online channels whilst waiting on hold (observed on 33% of their calls).
Internet Providers August 2023 Key Results
The summary data for the August 2023 Australian Internet Providers call centre performance is below.
Overall Ranking
Average Score
Internet Providers
#1 Ranked Call Centre
Aussie Broadband
Lowest Ranked Call Centre
Telstra
Quality Score
Average Score
Internet Providers
Highest Score
Aussie Broadband
Lowest Score
Dodo
Quality Summary August 2023
The quality of the customer interactions across the Internet Providers was rated as ‘Below Standards’ with a score of 55.7%.
- The lead performer for quality was Aussie Broadband (71.1%) followed closely by iiNet (67.6%) with Dodo (40.6%) and Optus (43.6%) rated the lowest.
- Key Results across all quality metrics:
- Engage (41.7%) – The lead performer was iiNet (75.0%), and the lowest rated was Telstra (16.7%).
- Discover (59.3%) – The lead performer was Aussie Broadband (88.9%), and the lowest rated was Optus (22.2%)
- Educate (65.3%) – The lead performer was iiNet (75.0%), and the lowest rated was Optus (50.0%)
- Close (44.4%) – The lead performer was Optus (66.7%), and the lowest rated was Dodo (22.2%)
- Energy (62.5%) – The lead performer was Aussie Broadband (100%), and the lowest rated was Dodo (33.3%)
Accessibility Score
Average Score
Internet Providers
Highest Score
Aussie Broadband
Lowest Score
Telstra
Accessibility Summary August 2023
- Of all the Internet Providers we assessed, Aussie Broadband had the highest accessibility score (93.3%) with Telstra the most difficult to access (44.4%).
- The Average Wait Time for all providers was 00:51 minutes, the fastest of all sectors, with Optus (0:06 minutes), Aussie Broadband (0:08 minutes) and iiNet (00:11 minutes) all providing minimal wait times for customers. The longest average wait time was 02:52 minutes (TPG).
- The majority of internet providers kept their IVR menus short, taking customers, on average, 00:32 minutes to navigate through the various options before being placed in the queue.
- Optus and Telstra have the most IVR menu layers, with three layers of options for customers to navigate.
- Audio Quality and the ease of finding the phone number was excellent across all providers.
Average Wait Time
Average Wait Time
Internet Providers
Shortest Wait Time
Optus
Longest Wait Time*
TPG
*We disconnect calls that go beyond a 10-minute wait time, so the actual wait times may be longer. ACXPA Members can see the percentage of calls not answered/exceeding the threshold in the members-only exclusive data.
Please also note that contact centres often have different queues for different services or functions (i.e. Sales or Service/New or Existing customers) and the experience can be different for each queue.
Exclusive Members-only Insights
What type of scenarios do we use to conduct the Mystery Shopping calls?
The scenarios we use are typically based on new sales opportunities (i.e. customers looking to purchase a new internet connection or move from another provider)
How does the scoring work?
You can learn more about the framework we use here >
How many calls are assessed?
For the public monthly report, we include at least three calls per Internet Provider – our paid service includes a minimum of six calls.
When you sign up for the CX Contact Centre Benchmarking service, you will receive at least six calls for your business along with every other Internet Provider included in the report. If you’d rather have a larger sample size, please refer to our customised Benchmarking service >
Why aren’t all the Internet Providers included?
We’d love to have all the Internet Providers included; however, conducting independent Mystery Shopping is expensive! We randomly chose a few Internet Providers to commence our program with and as (or if) other Internet Providers sign up to our CX Contact Centre Benchmarking program, we’ll be able to publish a larger sample size each month.
How can we improve our score?
Our Mystery Shopping program has been designed to provide Internet Providers with the insights they need to improve performance!
When you sign up to our CX Contact Centre Benchmarking service, you’ll receive detailed information on your performance against over 48 individual elements, so you know exactly where to focus, and we also include a quarterly report that provides you with personalised key recommendations on areas to focus on.
We also offer a range of training courses that can help teach your frontline employees the skills they need to deliver great customer service or improve sales:
- Customer Service Phone ‘Essentials‘ & ‘Professional‘
- Inbound Phone Sales ‘Essentials‘ and ‘Professional‘),
- Training courses for your Team Leaders/Managers so they know how to coach effectively using the Quality Framework to improve your performance (and scores!).
How do I get my contact centre included?
We have a fixed-price service starting from $1,297 per month that will provide you with information on your contact centre, as well as a benchmark of your performance against a minimum of five other Internet Providers that you can nominate. Learn more >
How do I order the service?
We have an online ordering form that makes it easy to order the service, nominate the Internet Providers you’d like to benchmark against, who you’d like the reports to be sent to etc. View the online order form >
How do I access the full data for the Internet Providers?
ACXPA Business Members get full access to the summary monthly data for Internet Providers (and other sectors) along with a host of other membership benefits.
An ACXPA Business Membership starts from just $497 per year and includes five individual memberships you can allocate to key employees who could benefit from gaining access to leading industry insights for contact centres, customer experience (CX), digital service, and in-person customer service.
Is there someone I can speak to to learn more?
Absolutely! If you’d like to speak to someone further about the Benchmarking Service, please get in touch with our General Manager of Quality Insights, Simon Blair – 0407 002 113 or [email protected]
What type of scenarios do we use to conduct the Mystery Shopping calls?
Most of our mystery shopping scenarios involve new customer enquiries so a potential sales opportunity for the Internet Provider.
Why do you hang up at either 10 or 15 minutes?
All our Mystery Shopping calls are conducted live by our accredited Mystery Shoppers who are all based in Australia. We cut off the calls at either 10 minutes (sales scenarios) or 15 minutes (service scenarios) for two key reasons:
- Research has shown that these are at the end of typical times customers will wait before they hang up.
- It’s expensive! As we use real human beings to conduct the Mystery Shopping call, it’s simply not practical to pay them often for hours (hello Centrelink!) whilst waiting for the call to be answered. So unless we get a very generous sponsor that enables us to wait the full time, we thought this was a reasonable decision.
Do Internet Providers really care about the service they provide?
As a competitive marketplace, it means there are various commercial approaches. As a commoditised product (it’s typically the same internet when you switch on the computer no matter which Intenet Retailer you purchase it from!), price is, of course, an important consideration.
But smart Internet Provider Retailers are also realising that providing a good customer experience can be a competitive advantage. But sometimes, whether it’s through a lack of resources or skills, or a strategic choice, the Contact Centre experience that is delivered is well below industry standards.
If, for example, an Australian Internet Provider chooses to under-resource the contact centre, or use offshore call centres, and can pass those savings onto you in the form of cheaper internet plans, that may be acceptable to some consumers who are happy to forgo some service to receive cheaper prices.
We don’t get involved in the strategy of each business, we simply report on the data against industry standards.
We do, however, believe that delivering a better customer experience is not only is it good for you as a consumer, but it’s also good for the business as all of the latest CX statistics will confirm.
Why does ACXPA publish results each month?
Our mission is to improve the level of customer experience in Australia so by publishing the results monthly, we’ll continue to ensure that Internet Providers are accountable for the level of customer service they are providing and to enable consumers to make an informed choice.
What type of services does ACXPA offer?
In addition to the Mystery Shopping CX Benchmarking, we offer a range of services and resources for people working in contact centres, customer experience (CX), digital service and in-person customer service/retail. You can learn more about us here >
How to gain exclusive insights for your Internet Business
If you’d like to gain insights specifically for your contact centre performance, and benchmark your results against other Internet Providers, we’ve got a new, cost-effective, fixed-price benchmarking service that makes it easy!
Starting from just $1,297 per month, by signing up for our Contact Centre CX Benchmarking Service, you’ll receive the following:
- Six Mystery Shopping calls into your call centre each month at random times and days where you’ll receive the full assessment against 48 metrics, our quality assessor’s notes, the employee’s name (where provided) and the full call recordings.
- Six Mystery Shopping calls each into five other Internet Providers (a total of 30 calls) that YOU nominate so you can benchmark your performance against other Internet Providers that matter the most to you.
- Aggregate data from all the other Internet Providers we assess providing you with industry sector-wide results to further compare your results to.
- A monthly email with data to track your performance along with the call recordings.
- A quarterly report containing insights and trends that are easy to understand, along with actionable recommendations to help improve your performance.
- An optional Quarterly Insights workshop for your team (conducted live via Zoom) that can provide additional insights, coaching and guidance.
- Access to training to help you improve results.
