ANZ

MATE TAKES ON LOCAL ISPS WITH ‘SIMPLE, AUTHENTIC STRATEGY’

Honesty and good customer service are two factors that have underpinned the success of Australian-based privately-owned internet service provider, Mate, according co-founder and general manager Mark Fazio.

“Our plan was always to build a simple business that had a simple revenue. While the plan was never to go head to head [with the major players], our brand has really resonated… with customers around being authentic, inclusive, and simple,” he said.

Mate, which provides NBN and ADSL internet services via the Vocus network and mobile services through Telstra’s 4G network, has grown its revenue from $579,000 in 2016 to $30 million in 2018 – a 3,703 per cent uplift. The company has projected it will achieve revenues of $35 million by June 2019.

“We have designed our networks to get the best value from our wholesale partners and we focused on bringing the price down and still achieve the best margin. Because we’re such a small company, we could look into those details and the agility to be successful and compete on that,” Fazio said.

Fazio also attributed the company’s success to date in part to its customer service centre, which he refers to as a “one-stop- shop”.

“Everybody in our business can do everything from sales, to provisioning, to tech support because we know time is precious and so we try to be as available as possible,” he said.

“You’ll notice during business hours we’re heavy on communicating through Facebook Messenger to service customers because that’s where they are. We also have live chat and are looking at other ways we can keep the conversation going when we’re not there.”

Looking ahead, Fazio said there are plans to offer value-added telco services, such as video streaming services.

Categories: ANZ, NBN, Telcos

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