Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) says it’s “turned the corner” on network woes which plagued the company late last year, and that it now has confidence in its network to actively seek out customers.
In a call after this afternoon’s announcement of their financial results for the first six months of 2011, VHA expressed delight at the progress of their network improvements, saying it now has full confidence in its network capabilities and performance.
CEO Nigel Dews said during the call that the company has now full confidence in the service it can provide, and that “what we don’t have we make up in value.”
He said VHA’s “first preference” is to sell customers devices compatible with its new 850Mhz devices, but phones compatible with Vodafone’s other networks will still work “well” according to Dews.
Dews also mentioned that the telco is keeping a watchful eye on mobile termination rates, noting that for them, “any substantial fall in termination rates is a win for Telstra.”
VHA have learned the hard way, Dews said, but the organisation is “working hard” to make sure nothing like last year’s disaster and the loss of nearly 375,000 customers over the past six months can ever happen again.
“We’ve learnt from our mistakes…. and we are making sure that this can’t ever happen again. This [VHA] is a completely different place.”
Social media has played a key role in the turn-around according to the company, with Dews mentioning that following the success VHA has been seeing “other competitors” have now also begun placing more of an emphasis on using social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to interact with customers.
“We learnt a lot with social media. At first we saw it more as a cross selling ienvironment, now it’s the place we listen to customers and try to be very responsive.”
“It’s [social media] a very, very important place to respond to customers quickly.”
Meanwhile as previously reported, Dews wouldn’t be drawn on setting a firm timeframe for a possible switch-on of the telco’s 4G network currently being built as part of the wider network upgrades being undertaken by the company.
“For us it’s always been a decision about when those services will be useful and interesting for the mass market,” he said, before saying that those keen for the 4G network should “wait and see” and “be ready” when the time comes.
“Typically what happens is that trends come [to Australia] later than we think and then hit faster…being ready is the key.”
Dews also confirmed that when the time is right, transmission upgrades will be the only thing standing in the way of Vodafone turning on their 4G network.
Telstra plans to turn on its 4G network in Australia later this year, making them the first Australian telecommunications provider to move onto the next-generation technology.
Similarly VHA’s plans to offer fixed-line broadband services via the National Broadband Network (NBN) that is slowly being rolled out across Australia are “progressing well” despite there being “a lot of hoops” in the path of the company.
“We see it as an opportunity for much lower prices for customers, and we continue to work with NBN on that kind of product,” Dews said of their NBN push.
He confirmed — despite them “getting close” — that Vodafone is still yet to connect any customers to the NBN trials currently being conducted in Armidale, Kiama Downs, Minnamurra and later this week in Brunswick, Victoria.
Dews is says VHA will attempt to woo customers by targeting the top three reasons customers move providers, namely value, network and service. As the telco turns the corner on it’s most troublesome time in its history, Dews says things can only go up from here.
“There’s always an opportunity to acquire customers,” Dews said, noting that the number of customers lost during the company’s crisis has now all but been “topped up”.
“Operationally, we’ve turned the corner.”
On a separate matter, when asked about the high price of roaming internationally for Australians right now, Dews suggested Australians could over time find prices slowly falling, just as they’ve begun to do in many European countries recently.
“Over time I’d expect the roaming rates reduction we’re seeing in Europe… to come down here as well,” he said.
