Skip to main content

Monday 5 June 2023 | 2 min read

Think like an Aussie: finding The Actual Aussie Way

An image of a male sitting behind a desk in a green polo against the same coloured background. He has a computer to his left, and a plant to his right, with the left-hand side of the image containing the phrase "Finding the Actual Aussie Way".

Overview

With a big anniversary around the corner, we at Aussie took the opportunity to reflect. We’ve grown in the 20 years since Phil Britt and John Reisinger started in a living room in Morwell, Victoria.

Never has this growth been more apparent than in the past year, with the acquisition of Over the Wire in 2022. We expanded our remit to provide a Tier 1 voice network, cloud, and security services to enterprise, government, and wholesale customers. As we brought the Over the Wire family on board and started forging our new path together, we began to feel like ‘Bloody Good Broadband’ didn’t paint the full picture.

By that, I don’t mean our broadband service is any less than first-class. If anything, we now see a huge opportunity to bring that same quality to our suite of services across residential, business, enterprise, government, and wholesale customers. How could we approach these new segments without losing the same Aussie attitude that helped us change the game for broadband all those years ago?

Aussie Broadband managing director Phillip Britt rings a bell to signal the company's debut on the ASX

Phillip Britt and John Reisinger celebrating Aussie being listed on the ASX in October 2020.

Introducing: The Actual Aussie Way. It is not a departure from our roots; it is a crystallisation of our approach. It's the perfect blend of our humble beginnings in regional Victoria and our big ambitions of building highways of connection to customers across segments and around the country. The Actual Aussie Way is about expanding our horizons and redefining what a world-class technology provider in Australia looks like.

For those of you who have been with us for some part of this journey – who voted for us in Mozo's Peoples Choice Awards for Outstanding Customer Satisfaction 5 years in a row and helped us achieve the top spot as Roy Morgan's Most Trusted Telco 2022 – you know that The Actual Aussie Way is about being good to people and doing things that we think will best-serve not just our customers, but all Aussies.

But if you are new to Aussie Broadband, you probably need some introduction. The best way is to show you through our actions rather than words, so let me give you some examples.

Disaster relief system

In 2019, one of our developers saw the devastation caused by the Bunyip Bushfires and was inspired to write a program he thought could help. This project, which we worked on in his own spare time, automatically checked our customer base against known bushfire affected areas. We loved the initiative, and invested in integrating it with our own systems in early 2020. Now, an automatic notice is sent to bushfire-affected customers letting them know we’ve paused their billing for 3 months and offer options of support in their time of need.

Fault detector project

Another in-house development was the Fault Detector Project, based off a simple idea: what if we could fix a problem for a customer before they even knew it existed? From there, we built a proactive system that identifies faults in the network and flags them to our internal team to resolve with clear diagnosis and troubleshooting options – all before a customer notices.

Aussie wearing pride shirt employees engages with attendees of the Midsumma Festival

Our booth at the Midsumma Festival in Melbourne where we celebrated Aussies in the LGBTIQ+ community.

Building better communities

And lastly, doing our part for our communities has always been central to our values. In 2021, we made this commitment official by joining Pledge 1%, committing our time and profit to doing good. We have been able to positively impact more than 100,000 Australians this financial year alone through our Helping Communities Connect program, where we offer discounted services to charities, community groups, and majority First Nations-owned businesses. Our logic is that by supporting those who are already tapped-in to local issues and have big ideas for possible solutions, those benefits trickle down through communities all around Australia.

We hope this shows that The Actual Aussie Way is all about you. It's about being good to you – offering fair prices, top-notch products, and giving you exactly what you need. No hidden fees, no offshore call centres, no being left on hold for eternity. We're here to be your trusted partner, delivering on our promises and owning up to our mistakes when they happen. We invite you to be part of this exciting journey as we forge our own path, The Actual Aussie Way.

Tags:Think like an AussieCulture

Written by

Headshot of Jonathan

Jonathan Prosser

Chief Strategy Officer

Jonathan is an experienced executive with 8 years’ experience in the Telco sector. Four of these involved leading Australia’s largest research programs on product, customer, marketing, and pricing in the Telco sector. Prior to this, he cloc...

See all articles

Share this post with your mates!

Articles like this