Optus reports: Back to Start.

Recently as many may know Optus had recorded a loss to end up at its starting point of the year. This maybe due to increased pressure to offer better deals to customers as 3 offers exceptional deals with good coverage, better network features (planet 3 vs Optus Zoo vs Next G) or the current issue that is plagueing both Optus customers and Sales staff; Poor On-Phone customer service.

One of the biggest marketing banes is the infamous negative word-of mouth. Like a virus it spreads 3x as fast as good word of mouth and can imensely effect a companies performance. For example, Orbitz (US Travel Company) received a plethora of hate-mail and booking cancellations following an article by a controversial writer known as Maddox (www.maddox.xmission.com) and Kull's world(http://kullsworld.typepad.com/kulls_world/2005/02/why_orbitz_suck.html).

Like this, Optus is also receiving a bad reputation, mostly for its poor customer service relating to long waits on the telephone, ranging from 10 minutes to 3 hours.
As well as this, it's poor retention of customers by offering deals that cater ONLY to new customers for Business Broadband (free router deal) and cheaper line rental.

It's no wonder that Optus are back where they started, it is well known it costs alot more to attract new customers than to retain old ones. A customer retention strategy for Business as well as Consumer needs to be re-thought and put into action. As retention strategies from companies such as Telstra and AAPT go unanswered, Optus loses more ground. SingTel cannot blame their loss ONLY on the saturated Indonesian Markets - they must also look @ the changing Australian market and the lack of response from their child-company.

Optus must also reconsider their Optus Zoo strategy, and offer more interactive benefits to the customer other than the 'basic' must have benefits that GPRS offers its customers. They will find that this will assist in creating new advertising opportunities and overall discover new-to-Optus facets of the telecommunications market to attract.

"Juniper Research projects that the global mobile commerce market, comprising mobile entertainment downloads, ticket purchases and POS transactions, will grow to $88 billion by 2009, largely on the back of micropayments. The research firm predicts that on average, Western Europeans will conduct around 28 transactions per year using their mobile phones by 2009, with each transaction valued at an average of approximately $3.00." - eMarketer, February 1, 2005.