We need to rebuild customer trust and could have done things better says Optus CEO

Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin says she’s proud of how her team responded to the massive data breach last year but admitted they still need to rebuild trust and that there were things the company could have done better.

Optus also revealed the work it was doing to block scam text messages and calls from reaching customers and showcased the many new and existing features and services of the network.

Speaking at Optus Tech Day at its Macquarie Park headquarters, the Optus boss Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said she learned a lot about the company, her team and their customers in the aftermath of the data breach in September.

“For us we were very, very clear that our mission was to protect customers and ensure that no customer came to any harm and that really galvanised our team,” Ms Bayer Rosmarin said.

“One of my learnings was just how important it is to build culture and to have a strong team around you well ahead of when you need it.

“I’m enormously proud and grateful to the whole team, how everybody responded and leaned in.

“We saw the best of everybody and working together it meant we could deal with the incident very effectively under enormous pressure and really continue to focus on customers and the right priorities.”

But Ms Bayer Rosmarin said Optus could have done some things differently.

“There was a lot of information around – some of it right, some of it wrong,” she said.

“We could have managed that better.

“We could have explained how complex the process was that we were going through.

“The customers saw our actual response not just what they read about our response.”

Ms Bayer Rosmarin also implied that Optus had also returned to pre-breach customer numbers.

“All the metrics that we tracked have now stacked really strongly so I think they (customers) appreciated that we were transparent in a way that has not been seen before in corporate Australia, that we did put them first,” she said.

But the Optus CEO also said there is still a lot of work to do rebuild their reputation and trust in the eyes of customers.

“For people who are not customers, that’s going to take a longer amount of time for us to rebuild that trust and ensure that people are focused on what we actually do every day, what motivates us as a team which is delivering a great solution with leading innovation to our customers as we continue our endeavour to build the most loved everyday brand in Australia with lasting customer relationships,” Ms Bayer Rosmarin said.

“Obviously, there were other learnings we took away about cyber crisis management and those will be fully implemented.

“We are striving to be the best that we possibly can be when it comes to security practises.”

Optus says it is also actively blocking scams texts and messages.

Here’s what Optus has done so far:

– Optus has blocked more than 300 million scam calls since December 2020; and blocked 65 million SMS scam messages over the last year.

– Just in 2023 alone, Optus suspended more than 22,000 services on the network for sending scam messages.

– Currently, Optus is blocking close to 5 million calls per month, and almost 8 million SMS per month.

– Over the last month, Optus blocked more than 18,000 LINKT scam SMS.
At Optus Tech Day, the company demonstrated a number of features and services available for Optus customers including The Living Network, SubHub, Cloud Gaming and Smart Spaces.

THE LIVING NETWORK

This is a menu of features Optus customers can use including Optus Pause to pause your home and mobile connection, Network Pulse to visual the Optus network and towers near you, Call Effects which can trigger in-call skills like a coin toss.

SUBHUB

SubHub is a dashboard where you can stay on top of all your streaming services and keep track of your subscriptions and easily pause and swap services when needed.

And if you have three or more eligible services in SubHub you can save 10 per cent on each of them every month.

CLOUD GAMING

Optus has formed a partnership with Pentanet and NVIDIA to start a premium cloud gaming service.

This means players won’t need a console to play the latest games – all they need is a controller and a connection.

Optus says this service will be optimised for Optus 5G customers so they get a fast and responsive experience.

SMART SPACES

Smart Spaces is a service where customers can purchase a range of smart products and receive personalised installation and set for everything like security cameras, smart doorbells, sensors and even installing and setting up smart TVs.

This service is available to everyone, not just Optus customers.