About Canstar’s Most Satisfied Customers Business Mobile Plan Awards
Canstar’s Most Satisfied Customers Awards showcase the business phone plan providers with the happiest customers across Australia. We ask customers to rate their satisfaction with their current business mobile phone plan provider by overall satisfaction, as well as other criteria including value for money, client service, network coverage, billing, plan flexibility, ease of recharge and sign up and activation.
Numbers crunched by Canstar’s researchers
- 432 customers surveyed
- 11 providers assessed
- Three providers shortlisted
- One award winner
The best business mobile plan providers
The brands rated are listed below in order of best overall satisfaction.
1. Vodafone
Vodafone has once again taken out the top spot, scoring an impressive five stars in all categories, including network coverage, client service, value for money and overall satisfaction.
Vodafone offers the option of SIM-only plans or plans that can be bundled with a device. All that you need to do is supply your ABN/ACN on sign up, or link it to an existing Vodafone mobile plan account, with additional business plans also able to be added.
2. Optus
Optus came in second place, scoring four stars in almost all categories — including overall satisfaction and value for money. However it scored five stars for ease of recharge.
Optus offers a range of options for its business phone plans. While you can pick a similar selection of SIM-only plans and devices to its non-business phone plans, Optus also offers Business Teams Plus plans. The Optus ‘team plan’ includes four SIM plans with data to share and flexibility, along with the option to add on additional SIMs for an extra cost per SIM.
3. Telstra
Rounding out our ratings was Telstra, which scored three stars for overall satisfaction, value for money, client service and plan flexibility. It scored its only five star result for network coverage and scored four stars in the remaining categories.
Telstra offers a range of SIM-only plans or plans with a phone, with the option to bundle services onto the one plan. Its plans and device selection are essentially the same offerings as what you’ll get if you sign up to a non-business plan. If you bundle a phone with a plan, you’ll choose from a 12, 24 or 36-month device repayment period.
Past business phone plan provider winners
Here are past winners of Canstar’s Most Satisfied Customers – Business Phone Plans Providers ratings:
- 2024: Vodafone
- 2023: Vodafone
- 2022: Vodafone
- 2021: Optus
- 2020: Vodafone
- 2019: Vodafone
- 2018: Optus
- 2017: Vodafone
- 2016: Optus
- 2015: Optus
FAQs about Canstar’s Business Mobile Plan Provider Awards
Canstar’s Most Satisfied Customers Awards recognise companies with the most satisfied customers overall based on consumer surveys.
Canstar surveyed 432 Australians with a current business mobile plan service for their feedback on mobile plan providers they’ve been signed up to. Respondents had to have a current mobile phone plan for a business and that business pays the bills.
Market research company PureProfile manages the survey on Canstar’s behalf.
Survey respondents are asked to rate their satisfaction with their business mobile phone plan provider from zero to 10, with zero meaning extremely dissatisfied and 10 meaning extremely satisfied. Business mobile plan provider satisfaction is rated on the following criteria:
- Overall satisfaction: measures consumer satisfaction with a mobile plan provider as an individual score, NOT the combined total of all criteria.
- Value for money: the price paid for the mobile phone plan was reasonable for the service experienced.
- Network coverage: the mobile network offered good and reliable coverage.
- Client service: the mobile plan provider offered good service and support, and was easy to get in touch with.
- Plan flexibility: the mobile plan provider offered a reasonable amount of plan flexibility.
- Billing: the mobile plan billing was clear and easy to understand and pay.
- Sign up and activation: signing up and activating the service was quick and easy.
- Ease of recharge: recharging the plan was quick and simple, whether it was auto recharge or manual recharge.
The winning brand receives the highest overall rating once all the scores from each category are combined and averaged.
Canstar also gives Star Ratings to top performing financial products, and Outstanding Value Awards to providers with a range of high-performing products. Canstar’s Innovation Excellence Awards also showcase products and services that break new ground when it comes to helping customers.
Canstar rates products and services over a range of consumer categories, in addition to financial services.
Access to a phone and/or phone plan for work can be an essential part of a business. Of those surveyed, 29% provide employees with a mobile phone for work use and 26% upgrade handsets every one to two years.
Despite several providers offering mobile phone services to businesses, 45% of respondents have always been with the same business phone service provider. A big reason for this could be that almost a third of respondents (30%) believe the provider offers good value, while 28% believe their provider offers the best coverage or is the only provider with coverage in the area.
However, when you break it down to a few points, comparing business mobile phone plans might be more simple than you think.
- Phone with a plan or SIM-only: The first thing to consider is whether you’ll need phones bundled with a phone plan — such as an iPhone or Samsung phone — or if you simply need the phone plan on its own. If you need handsets with a plan, your provider choices will mostly be limited to the big three telcos (Telstra, Optus and Vodafone).If you just need the SIM cards with a phone plan, then you have a wider range of options to choose from.
- Additional extras: Some providers will offer business-related extras such as the ability to bundle multiple services, data sharing across plans, device security software and more. If these extras are important to you, you can then compare providers to see what is available and which telco will offer the best value for you.
- Data: How much mobile data you need for your plans is pretty important. Consider what your team will be using their phone plans for — such as working on the go, accessing emails, video conferencing, making calls, etc — to help determine whether you need a plan with lots of data. If phones will be used primarily for making and receiving calls and accessing emails, a smaller amount of data, or a data-sharing plan, might work best. Otherwise you’ll need bigger data plans for working on the go and video conferencing.
- Mobile coverage: Of course, for some workers, a phone plan can be essential when travelling for work. If your team frequently needs to travel, especially to regional and remote areas, ensuring your choice of provider has good mobile network coverage in that area is essential. While the Telstra, Optus and Vodafone networks all offer coverage to the majority of the country, it’s worth checking the mobile coverage map before signing up to a provider to ensure that the areas your team will be working from are covered.
Apart from the above-mentioned providers, there are several other telcos also offering phone plans for businesses, although many of these providers might only offer SIM-only plans and no handsets for bundling. These telcos include:
- Aussie Broadband
- Southern Phone
- SpinTel
