NBN Co is planning a major expansion of management in its customer experience and product operations, intending to bring 12 new managers on board.
The network builder yesterday indicated it would recruit seven general managers and five executive managers into a variety of roles aimed at improving its product offerings and the way they are brought to market.
It is one of the single largest recruitment drives by NBN Co in recent times.
While NBN Co says some of the roles are needed as the company moves from network builder to operator, it would appear many of the positions are about addressing persistent in-market problems the company is experiencing.
NBN Co is currently conducting a heavily-watched consultation with its major RSPs in a bid to overhaul the way customers are brought onto the network and to address ongoing concerns with the company’s pricing model.
New product constructs are being touted as a result of the consultation, and their arrival in market can’t come quickly enough, after the ACCC last week indicated its patience with NBN Co was wearing thin and warned further regulations may be likely.
Management spree breakdown
Several of the new management roles fit under a customer experience (CX) transformation that the company is pursuing.
In October, NBN Co admitted that it had under-invested in customer service as its network expanded.
The admission came as NBN complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) more than doubled in the space of a year.
That appears to be the driver for one of the new roles: an executive manager for enquiries and complaints.
That EM will take over the “management of complaint escalations from NBN executives and external regulatory bodies”, in particular tackling issues raised by MPs as well as the TIO.
In addition, an executive manager and a general manager are being hired to develop a “customer experience insights” discipline with the aim of improving satisfaction scores.
Another executive manager is being brought into the company’s migrations and disconnections program of work.
“The primary goal of this work is to ... reduce the risk of erroneous disconnections, and improve the service provider and end user experience,” NBN Co said.
Most of the general manager roles appear to be about NBN Co getting its products right.
It wants separate GMs to focus on “defining winning product plans and initiatives” for its HFC and wireless access technologies.
NBN Co similarly wants someone to strategise sign-ups in “new developments” and apartment blocks, and to set product strategy and find revenue growth opportunities across its portfolio of wholesale products.
Further roles are targeting quick transformation and augmentation of the company’s retail sales and marketing operations.
NBN Co also wants an executive to bring all of these pieces together to target major improvements in its fortunes.
“The general manager of wholesale product capability and operations will ensure flawless establishment of a winning wholesale product that meets the needs of retail service providers (RSPs) and end-users, enables the NBM revenue growth ... and that creates fantastic customer experience (CX)...,” the company said.
