Home Cool Company Awards 2010 Meet iiNet, Anthill 2010 Cool Company Award Finalist

Meet iiNet, Anthill 2010 Cool Company Award Finalist [Big Kahuna Award Category]

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What are the Anthill Cool Company Awards?

The Cool Company Awards were launched in 2006 as a way for Anthill to acknowledge and celebrate Australian organisations that are doing things differently to bring about positive change. Cool Companies stay one step ahead of the rest. They breed leaders who are rule-makers and rule-breakers. They are trend-setters in attitude and action. Quite simply, they are … cool!
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iiNet

Company: iiNet
Website: www.iinet.net.au
State: WA
Categories: Big Kahuna

From humble beginnings in a Western Australia garage in 1993, iiNet has grown to become the nation’s third largest ISP. But that’s just a fraction of the story.

iiNet likes to call itself a challenger brand. First and foremost, that means taking on communications behemoths like Telstra and Optus (sometimes in court). But it also means challenging itself with breakthrough products, such as Naked DSL in 2007, phone-modem combo BoB in 2009 and internet TV in 2010. It means setting up customer-service centers in four time zones so call centre employees can work human hours.

It also means letting staff strut around the office in pajamas for a product-launch celebration, or sponsoring a contest to find Australia’s No. 1 geek.

BoB, one of iiNet’s slicker products, provides home communications need in a sleek, black box. It can deliver wireless broadbands at speeds up to 300 Mps, and iiNet package national and local calls in one monthly fee.

According to iiNet’s Cool Company application: “We win the hearts of customers with a brand that provides relevant and differentiated promises, and win their minds with great products and offers. Rather than shout at the market, we use targeted media to have timely conversations.”

Its web service includes a quota-less Freezone of content for customers and their kids. The company offers free workshops on its iiNet Open Day. Ah, and there’s the ongoing top-geek contest. Participants are asked to submit videos that lay out why pocket protectors are embedded in their chests. The winner gets a paid trip to one of four geek nirvanas in the States: San Diego Comic-Con, Consumer Electronic Show (CES), South by Southwest (SXSW) or Penny Arcade Expo (PAX).

In addition to its “Follow the Sun” customer-service model, iiNet’s corporate staff have the flexibility of working from home via VPN; a work-from-home program also is available for support staff on contact centres.

“The company provides staff with unique benefits to ensure working at iiNet is an unforgettable experience,” the contest application says. “Not many workplaces would organise to climb Mt Kilimanjaro; invite staff to wear their PJs to work; pay people to surf Facebook (social media research); send people on a night excursion to the observatory; or install a chocolate fountain in the kitchen for some Friday fun.”

iiNet ad that introduces BoB

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