On-going consultation between a corporation and community and welfare groups has been the key to a program that is successfully making telecommunications services affordable for low-income consumers.Working together, Telstra and community groups have created a package aimed at helping all people maintain a communications service.

Telstra is subject to price regulations on home phone services which include that they must offer a discount to low-income consumers. In 2001, Telstra was meeting this requirement with mixed success. Offerings such as a free incoming call service with outgoing calls available to 000 (called InContact) and a small concession for eligible pensioners were successful. However, a discount for customers who made few calls from their home phone was not as well targeted with owners of holiday homes also getting the discount because they only occasionally used their phone.

At this time Telstra was charging it’s customers below cost for line rental and subsidising this through its call charges. Telstra wanted to change its pricing structure to reflect its actual costs. This meant increasing line rental charges, and decreasing overall call costs. However, Telstra was concerned about the impact these changes would have on low-income consumers who managed their Telstra bills by limiting the number of calls they made and so might not benefit from lower call prices.

Identifying the issues

To discover how increasing line rental would affect lowincome consumers, and to minimise any potential negative impact on them, Telstra undertook a 12-month consultation program with community and welfare groups. Starting with Telstra’s Consumer Consultative Council (TCCC) and then extending to a wide range of other community agencies, Telstra listened to the people with experience in dealing with disadvantaged people and their needs.

Through these discussions seven broad segments of low-income consumers were identified: aged pensioners, people with a disability, transient/homeless, job seekers, people from a non-English speaking background, Aboriginal and Islander communities and low-income families.

Discussions revealed that the telecommunications needs of each segment were different. Needs included assistance to gain access to a basic telephone service, different ways to pay telephone accounts, and options for managing monthly costs of telecommunications. There wasn’t a single product or service that Telstra could offer that would benefit all of the groups and off-set the effect of increasing line rental and decreasing call costs. Telstra needed to create some new options to meet all the needs which had been identified.

“Talking to stakeholders showed us the wide range of need in the community. We knew we could make a difference, but we would have to be innovative in how we did this,” says Robert Morsillo, Group Manager Consumer affairs, Telstra.

Providing a solution

In April 2002 Telstra released the initial details of a new package of products and services – “Access for Everyone” –aimed at helping to address the needs of low-income consumers. Components of the package announced included:

• A free virtual messaging service for homeless and itinerant consumers, MessageBox. Family members, potential employees, housing authorities and others could leave phone messages which the user could retrieve free through any Telstra payphone or fixed service.
• The Telstra Bill Assistance Program, where A$5 million worth of A$25 certificates are made available each year to Telstra home phone customers who are experiencing a financial crisis. The certificates are distributed by community and welfare agencies who work directly with people at the time of need. The certificates are used to help pay telephone bills, keeping these customers connected.
• Improving the Telstra Pensioner Discount. This offers, among other things, a line rental discount on most plans, to help minimise the impact of line rental increases on eligible pensioner customers.
• Announcing a new home phone plan, HomeLine Budget, with lower than standard line rental and higher than standard call costs, for customers who do not use their phone very much.
• Upgrading the InContact service to allow calls to certain counselling and support services, and later, outgoing calls to nearly all numbers through a Telstra pre-paid calling card.

The announcement of the package did not mean Telstra had finished working with community organisations. Telstra enlisted the support of community agencies to distribute some of the products available through the Access for Everyone package.

MessageBox cards and the Telstra Bill Assistance Certificates are only available from community organisations, not from Telstra. Telstra recognised the expertise of community agencies, and gave them the authority to determine which of their clients should receive this assistance. By June 2006 there were nearly 700 community agencies distributing MessageBox cards, and approximately 1200 community agency outlets distributing Telstra Bill Assistance Certificates.

On-going work

To oversee the on-going success and effectiveness of the package the independent Low Income Measures Assessment Committee (LIMAC) was established. LIMAC includes representatives from a range of community organisations such as The Smith Family, Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), Australian Federation of Homelessness Organisations (AFHO), The Salvation Army and Anglicare Australia as well as the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

Since 2002 LIMAC has:

• Suggested changes to the eligibility criteria for some of the products and services offered in the package to ensure that they are available to the intended audience.
• Advised on new additions to the Access for Everyone package including the Telstra Phonecard Assistance Program, under which A$1 million worth of A$5 Phonecards, for use in Telstra payphones, is distributed each year.
• Provided advice on communications activities to raise awareness of, and to promote, the Access for Everyone package
• Monitored the take-up of the products and services available through the low-income package, and commissioned annual market research with users to measure effectiveness and suitability of the offerings.
• Reported annually on the effectiveness of the package to meet the communications needs of customers on a low-income.

Chris Dodds, Chair of LIMAC says: “A significant part of the success of the program is due to the consultation that Telstra was prepared to undertake. Telstra’s willingness to listen to people from various fields, who have the depth of experience in dealing with disadvantaged people and their needs, has enabled Telstra to draw on expertise that it doesn’t hold itself. That’s the really important part – that they are willing to listen.”

Access for Everyone currently offers services worth more than A$200 million a year, with more than 1.5 million Australians benefiting. Its success is largely due to the thorough consultation Telstra undertook with community agencies in designing the package and implementing the programs.

Feedback from community agencies includes:

“The Telstra Bill Assistance certificates have supported our clients in many ways. A family who were living with relatives in severely overcrowded conditions was able to move into their own private rental property. We were able to support them in understanding the housing system, their responsibilities and rights as tenants, to obtain financial assistance to re-establish themselves and have food on the table. The Telstra certificates meant that the family could afford to have the telephone contacts with vital contacts within the community.” – Melbourne, Victoria.

“I have been giving the MessageBox cards to my clients, they have been very well received. The women have used the cards to access messages from Centrelink re payment or work, to keep in touch with Legal Services or families to contact after a crisis has occurred. As most of the women who access this Centre are homeless, the cards are a great innovation from Telstra. Thank you. – Darwin, Northern Territory.

Contact: Jenni Barbour
Telephone: +61 3 9634 8711
Website: www.telstra.com

Telstra's Sustainability Report: http://www.telstra.com.au/abouttelstra/csr/reports.cfm