Text refresh: Telstra 1c Text
Filed under: customers, Facebook, mobile phone, social media, social trends
I’ve been at Telstra for over 15 years and in this time, I’ve never seen a Telstra product or service develop such a large and loyal following like our 1c Text+ offer.
As part of my role, I regularly read the comments posted on the Facebook pages relating to this product, including the 20,000 strong Telstra 1c Text Facebook fan page.
From reading these comments it’s clear that some of you ‘love’ the offer, while others are frustrated that 1c Text+ doesn’t cover all your texting needs.
I’ve also noticed a number of Facebook pages suggesting we are getting rid of the 1c Text+ offer altogether.
Let me assure you that this is not true. In fact, we are actually working on revitalising this offer.
While a lot of the basic features of the 1c Text+ offer will remain the same. – such as the daily 100 text limit – we want to make changes that are aligned with what you want.
For example, we know you’re increasingly using your mobile to browse the internet and access Facebook and Twitter, so we need to provide more included data in our plans.
Plus, we know you’ve got friends on different networks, and we need to make it as easy as possible for you to connect with all your mates without it hurting the hip pocket. .
We want to hear what you want from our 1c Text+ offer… If you’ve got a great idea or really want something included, let us know what you think by completing our short survey.
You can also become a fan of our Telstra Facebook page, where we’ll keep you updated on our plans for the re-fresh and share feedback on your suggestions.
I look forward to reading your feedback.
What about introducing more SMS packs for post-paid customers to give similar deals? It’ll encourage more people to change to Telstra….
Hello i think it would be a great idea to have the 1c text to all networks but if that is to much have like a 5 c text to all network number. But i think a good thing for Telstra to do would be to bring back the Freedom offer that was a very popular offer. Or do what like Optus and Vodafone do and have a Turbo cap offer where if you recharge $30 you get $150 because i know alot of people that i have tried to get to come onto Telstra and said no because they didnt have a Turbo Offer
Thanks
I want perhaps 1c to the other networks/text to twitter etc. I jsust want it cheaper for things that aren’t texting to telstra mobiles.
It certainly is a popular service. I think the inclusion of data on any prepaid plan is a must today because as people upgrade their phones, internet access is something they will be looking for. From a marketing perspective the “1c” is a great based on that number it makes it look like the cheapest in the market. So from a marketing perspective, its a real winner.
I agree with Rhett – why can’t we have something similar to this on post-paid plans? I would love to be able to text cheaply from my phone that’s locked into a contract…
Rhett and Matt have a look at the new Optus Social Plans…a 2yr contract on a $59 Cap or above will give u FREE unlimited SMS and MMS to any network plus a free phone, call credits and data.
That would solve all your texting issues !
Because I am younger then my sisters, I did not get a mobile phone until ages after my sisters did. they were on the 1c text plan and i liked it too. but when i was old enough to get a phone the plan changed needing to get a $20 recharge or more to get 1c texting. I find this hard to save up for becaue I only get $5 a week pocket money and now I have no money left to buy other things. Can you lower the recharge amount for 1 c texting to $10? This would be the same as my sisters get now. Thanks
I have the same problem and I also would like there to be a $10 a month recharge offer. $20 a month is just too much and leaves some of us no money for other things.
Thanks,
Ellen
Hi, I would like to see a cheaper recharge bought back by telstra ($10.00). As a mother of 4 teenagers its very expensive for them and me to afford to recharge their phones and then loose any credit at the end of the month and i would like to see a longer expiry date….TELSTRA make enough money from the rest of us and being a telstra customer for 20 years they need to stop thinking of just the dollars and get back to the basics look after the customer!!!!!
Yes i totally agree my teenage daughter has recently received a mobile phone for her birthday and is also on 1c text with having to recharge to $20 to receive this offer. If friends send her credit she is charged 25c per text which is really unfair. she is too young to have a part time job and cant afford to recharge at $20 per month. I think this is very unfair to teenagers and parents who cant necessarily afford to recharge $20 to each of their child’s mobile phones per month.
the downfall is that teenagers who cant afford the recharge miss out on using their phone.
Telstra please change this so texting at 1c is fair for all.
It will only take one competitor to introduce a lower (than $20-) 1c text recharge plan, or a longer (say 30 day) expiry or, even better, a 5c text ‘all networks’ plan and Telstra will lose customers in droves. I for one will have no hesitation. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the majority of 1c ‘texters’ would be teenagers or younger that are, no doubt, donating a fair proportion of their credit every 30 days, shame on you in Telstra! I pity those families that have more than one mobile in the household. It’s easy to see why though. If 500,000 people are donating, on average, say $15- (or even $10-) per month…………. (you work out the math!)
I’m all for business making profit but at what price? Customer satisfaction is becoming a thing of the past; it’s all about the shareholder. Maybe Telstra should buy a banking licence, they’ll fit right in!
Hi,
I agree with Davo to some extent.
Consumer behaviour is changing and we need to adapt to these changes. SMS 10 years ago was a great and cheap way to communicate, however, nowadays, consumers found lot of alternative ways to communicate with family and friends. With an Iphone App (such as facebook, twitter, skype, IM+, etc) you can communicate 24/7 with a limited use of SMS.
Competition is intensifying amongst competitors and it will force Telstra to create more values for our customers, which exceed their expectations.
This is the paradox of using more data over texting services!
Thanks for all your feedback so far on the 1c Text+ blog. Please keep them coming, and I hope you’ve taken a moment to complete our short survey. I have passed on your comments to the appropriate Telstra team.
Cheers, Brendan
Thank you to everyone for your great feedback on my 1c Text+ offer blog, that also provides us some great insights in to your thoughts around post-paid plans. Please keep it coming. Thanks also to those of you who have taken the time to participate in the survey.
We are reviewing the ideas and sharing it with our relevant product and marketing teams.
Potta
What about international calls included in the $39 cap ????
As a parent of grade 6 twins I have given in to allowing them each a mobile phone with 1 cent texts. My wife and I work and are occassionally late to pick them up from school, if they are out with their friends at the cinema’s etc our decison was based simply on being able to contact them and they us as required. One frustrating thing with the 1 cent text is the $20.00 recharge and the expiry of any remaining credit after the month. It would suite many families with younger children to have either $10.00 recharge or longer expiry timeframes. At present we don’t recharge as frequently as we should simply because of the cost therefore leaving the children with phones that don’t allow them to contact us when they need to. It’s simply economics on our part.
Hello. I;m on the Talk & Txt. Now that you have the bonus txt and mins, it is fantastic value, and I can allocate my main credit to data. Please don’t take this special offer away!
Hi,
I strongly agree with Elvio Gesiotto.
“One frustrating thing with the 1 cent text is the $20.00 recharge and the expiry of any remaining credit after the month.”
Although I text regularly, a period of only 30 days is much to small to use $20 worth of credit using 1c text. A longer expiry for 1c text would be a very welcome change, and one which I am sure many would benefit from.
I agree with Rhett, there NEEDS to be more options for those on post paid in regards to texting. its an absolute rip off all the “deals” telstra has currently, since they are all aimed at people who ring and use the internet alot – which im not interested in! which is why im changing provider as soon as my contact ends…. probably to optus then i get a new phone, plus unlimited texting and less run around.
I love the data being upgraded from 10mb to 20mb but correct me if im wrong, but does the credit expiry period not add on anymore? My credit used to expire in 2012 but now it expires in 2 months time and i didnt run out of credit. It would be nice if i was told how many texts i have left as well because sometimes before i realise i spend 5 or 10 dollars on 25 cent texts which is incredibly annoying. Wasnt impressed by this recharge to get the 1c text messages stuff either… Limiting 1c messages to 100 per day was restricting enough
Telstra has the worst service in the world, i mean 1c text only if you pay $20 a month…someone please go knock some sense into these morons
why don’t u just leave the 1c text no matter how much recharge people put on cause if u r gonna start putting a $20 limit on it then u will prob start losing customers, cause i know that a lot of people don’t have the money at the time to pay $20 where as $5 they would.
I think that 1c text shouldnt hav a limit of 100 texts. Virgin mobile do free texts virgin to virgin and there is no limit on those texts at all you can send as many as you want. However if the limit is going to stay it needs to be raised. The limit should also come with a free message alerting you when you have reached the limit as it is near impossible to count your own texts for the day.
I agree. The 1c text offer shouldnt be limited to 100 texts per day. I text my boyfriend everyday and he lives out of town so its easy to go over 100 texts. the limit should be raised to at least 200 texts a day.
I am currently seeking more information on the current 1c text offer. My G/F has the most recent 1c Text offer and it is great, except the fact she is being charged 25c to text me! I am with Telstra, I am also pre-paid, I want more information on this offer so I can find out why she is being charged more to text me!
Hi Kyle, Perhaps this mught have the information you need. http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/prepaid/latestoffers/
let me know how you go. Brendan
i do not like the fact that 1c text is no longer unlimited and that telstra do not warn you when you do go over your 100 texts limit! i always go over the 100 texts limit and it wastes all my credit without me knowing.
Telstra used to be good but now recently it has gotten awful… its all about making money now and customers don’t seem to matter as much. I mean you have to spend a fair sum of money nowadays to actually get anything worthwhile. Look at the 100 text limit that’s been brought in. Surely they didnt bring that in to make themselves more appealing to customers. And the fact that these texts only last for 30 days? Come on telstra. Pull your head in.
I think putting the 1 cent texts back to 3 months expiry would be excellent as my kids use it, one month is not enough, my two eldest daughters go close to using up there 20 dollars worth but my two youngest had 18 each left on their phones and today telstra decided to take the remainder. And I love how we are told the changes to this plan are in the terms and conditions, but we “the consumer” were unaware of the changes to the expiry from 3 months to 30 days. I love the fact that we are asked to check the terms and conditions which can be changed and altered at any time by telstra, usually to the consumers detriment and without their knowledge, there was no correspondence from telstra to make their customers aware of these changes. I think from now on I will just get the kids to save their pocket money for the month and then send it straight to telstra via money order, or maybe we can just have a telstra bushrangers hiding in the bushs at school jump out and steal the money straight from their pockets. As you may tell I am not happy with telstra and they are about to lose our business all together, 6 mobile phones and a home phone will be saying bye bye to telstra. I am disgusted at the lack of sympathy from the operators that we have spoken to as well. Telstra care little about their customer and more about making huge profit, okay everyone likes to make money, but not out of children. Bloody disgusting Telstra you should be ashamed of yourself.
My daughter sent credit2u $1 to a friend, came off her account but did not credit to his????
100 txt is to short it should be like 175 or sumthin around that coz its stupid
I agree. they should raise it up to like 200 texts. its way to short
I think having cheaper text rates on mobile plans would turn alot of people over to telstra. those who want to go on a plan dont want such a jump from being able to send 100 texts for $1, to sending just 4 texts for $1. even if it isn’t changed to 1c text on plans, anything lower than 25c would be great. I’ve wanted to go on a plan for ages but couldnt hack to cost of 25c texts
As a Telstra Home Bundle customer I am very frustrated that there is no ‘cheap teens’ offer that allows free calls to 1 or 2 telstra home phone/mobiles which are on the account, along with a reasonable amount of cheap or incldued texts. I am seriously thinking of changing my own mobile over to another provider which will allow my chidlren to call me (in emergencies) whatever their credit. There must be a huge amount of custoemr need for this out there.. come on. (And after waiting 8 minutes on hold on your Sales number, I’ve just been disconnected….) I really wonder whether Telstra is actually interested in new customers and retaining existing?
Hi Sue, I have just sent you an email. Please reply when you have a moment or send me a contact number and account number, I’ll get someone to call you.
If it wasnt for telstra Next G I’d be with optus or someone who doesnt limit their 1c texts to 100 a day
i have just gone on the telstra pre paid turbo cap where i recharge $30 and get $200 worth of calls and texts. Is there anyway i can see how much credit i have used or how much i have left??
Is the freedom offer still available or will it come back? That was the best offer and would b very convenient for those parents who buy children phones just for contact between child and parent
The only reason i would choose 1cent text was if i could text other networks for the same price..like what Optus does.
Bring back the old 1c text offer… unlimited number of texts per day. If you want to gain more customers then make it 1c to all networks.
I think that the rates of services in australia are too high, compared to with the rest of the world. Credit expiry is also a joke, I believe credit should expire after 12 months.
Longer credit expiry! Like the old prepaid.
We need cheaper texting to other networks!
I know a lot of people who have changed to other networks because the 25c texting is simply too expensive, and I have considered changing myself.
i would like to get rid of the 100 txt limit
i honestly think that this whole thing that you guys have done is shit!!!
why in the first place change the offer to only 100 txts per day
it frustrates the hell out of me when i have to stop talking sometimes in the middle of a convasation,
it may be just to stop people texting so much, but thats what your company is its for people to use there money to talk to people pretty much, and you doing this just shits people and makes them change phone comapanies i know im going to unles i can get it back to the normal, unlimited texts soon
hey my phone keeps coming up with a 5 cent charge for REP whenever i text someone, what does that mean?
That’s a delivery notice charge. There should be an option under message settings (depends on your phone) where you can turn of “delivery” or something along those lines. It charges you 5 cents per message. I had the same problem where it chewed up my credit.
i think the 100 daily limit should be scrubbed…..
lets be honest about this, the better the offer, the more customers u gonna get, but yet yous still find ways to make it worse 4 everyone? def shouldnt have a limit on txting, u pay for the 1c txt, so y should there b a limit on how many u send? beyond a joke really. if telstra wants customers, then they should have some dignity n do the right thing by us. its a win win. lose the limit
or lose customers 
I ported my number to vodafone then I ported back to telstra again bec of better coverage in my area, now I’m not happy that I’m on 1c text offer with 100 texts a day, and must at least 20 dollars recharge to continue 1c SMS. What a joke.
Shame telstra. GO BACK THE OLD 1C OFFER PLEASE. I have 6 kids in my family, do I have to pay $140 for 6 including me? No thanks. We are going BYE Telstra. Hello optus.
why can,t l credit me to you (my son) and keep his rate at 1c per sms instead of it jumping to 25c ? l dont like to give him $20.00 credit even though its limited to 100 sms per day.His phone is primarily for parental contact and is part of 3 prepaid phones used in the family.
I think 1 cent text either needs to come with a longer expiry or there needs to be a $10 or $15 recharge that offers 1 cent text.
But, my txt told me that the offer is getting rid of the 100 daily 1 cent limit, but this website says thats not true???? Any answers?
i got the same txt and i am also confused, and i had my hopes up because the limit is really restricting. I would like the limit to be gone
Hey Tom i found a page that explains what you are looking for http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/prepaid/prepaid-offers/1cent-text-offer/
Hi,
i am on 1 cent text and have been on this for 2 years now but all of a sudden i am getting charged 5 cents sometime when i send a message can anyone help me??
My friend changed my plan for me which I was annoyed because I was on the 1c text offer. Is there any chance of getting it back?
Bree and Chloe. Please use this form to send me your mobile numbers so I can have someone look into this for you. Brendan.