The winners of the 2015 Telecommunications and Utilities Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Awards

There was a mix of record-breaking repeat winners, close-fought races and new champs among the home phone, mobile phone, internet, and utilities service providers claiming the 2015 Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Awards announced last night.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Southern Phone scored its third consecutive Home Phone Service Provider award, satisfying at least 87% of its customers in each month throughout 2015. Special mention goes to Optus, which steadily increased its Customer Satisfaction: from out of nowhere, Optus rose from fifth to fourth to third to second—and then held the silver spot throughout the second half of the year.  

Home Broadband Service Provider Westnet triumphed in 2015—the first to knock Internode off the pedestal since the Customer Satisfaction Awards began in 2011.

Another first-time winner is Mobile Phone Service Provider ALDImobile. In this highly competitive category, Amaysim scored four monthly wins and Southern Phone scored three—but ALDImobile’s five was enough to claim the final prize (a comfort, perhaps, for missing out on the Supermarket award to South Australian-based Foodland).

Only one company has now won all five annual Customer Satisfaction Awards in its category: a mobile handset provider, perhaps you’ve heard of them, called Apple. Despite making some gains in the marketplace, the likes of Samsung, Sony, HTC and LG will need to pull out something special in 2016 to top the iPhone’s consistent satisfaction rate of well over 90%.

Telecommunications Customer Satisfaction Award winners for 2015:

• Home Phone Provider: Southern Phone
• Home Broadband Service Provider: Westnet
• Mobile Phone Service Provider: ALDImobile
• Handset Provider: Apple iPhone

UTILITIES

For the first time since 2012, one provider has snagged both Awards for Electricity and Gas Provider of the Year: Red Energy.

This is the second consecutive year that Red Energy has been Australia’s most-satisfying Gas provider. This is also the company’s second win in the Electricity category—finally reclaiming the title it first won back in 2011.

Utilities Customer Satisfaction Award winners for 2015:

• Gas Provider: Red Energy
• Electricity Provider: Red Energy

Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan Research, says:

“Delivering a high and consistent rate of Customer Satisfaction is vital for companies proving telecommunications and utilities services. We use our home phone and internet, our mobiles, and our electricity and gas services every day. In Retail and Travel, satisfied customers may return with their open wallets next week, next month or next year—but telcos and utilities may have at stake a few dollars a day for the rest of a customer’s life.

“Satisfied phone, internet and energy customers are worth exponentially more than their last bill, or the total value of their 24-month contracts. But delivering satisfaction isn’t always cheap or easy. How many customers will switch if your call centre moves off-shore? Who is perfectly happy with their current plan—until a better one is advertised? Who does everything online and would rather never open a letterbox again? Who will recommend you to family and friends—and who are they telling? Who wants faster, bigger, cheaper, or more reliable—and who wants all the above and more?

“Using our Single Source data, providers can quantify the real short- and long-term dollar value of customer segments to work out the potential ROI of different investments in customer service, competitive pricing, clear and flexible terms, or digital services.  

“Roy Morgan Research congratulates the winners, the near-winners and the most-improved.”