Australia’s Leading Telco Scraps Web Services

Aussie Telco Web Services Provider Shutdown: A New Opportunity for Agencies or not?

I hate to not being specific about who the “Telco” actually is but they have an army of lawyers and their brand is trademarked so I’m playing it safe with any advertising unlike some other agencies I’ve seen who are being far more specific to the point of taking screenshots and even and using the trademarked pink and blue logo. At the end of the day if you’re reading this you know who I’m talking about and their “Business Web Services”.

If you are a client looking to be transferred click the link: qualifier

This article though is written not only for the client but the other agencies out there thinking how they can get a slice of the pie.

We don’t ethically steal other agencies business unless a client wants us to migrate them

Usually we don’t chase other specific agencies or freelancers clients even if you can see issues with their services or product it’s not a good look and how would you like them to do the same to you.

However in this particular instance it’s an Australian well known Telco who has transferring these mainly small mum and dad businesses off to their “global” partner. It’s all a little complicated on the “acquisition” side, while the Australian Telco has operated relatively transparently under their own name “Telco business web services” and they’re super well known the new name is not known by anyone. That’s why they have introduced themselves a sub-company separate from the parent off-shore.

Office based in Amsterdam

Their main office is in Amsterdam. Does that sounds “Australian” to anyone? They do however have an office in Melbourne which I’m sure employs lots and lots of call centre staff eager and willing to answer the phone to help. (better) Look, I really don’t know the detail here and maybe on****es***.com really have been around for years.

Well established – Maybe not?

I jumped onto wayback machine to see what the story actually was as I had suspected the domain had been around since early 2000s It’s a very catchy popular name and good domain value. Then it went quite for many, many years probably while the owner tried to sell it. In 2023 the site actually had a forbidden page which is probably about the time the global giant purchased it with the intent of transferring lots of our Telco websites across for management. While they may push they’re been around for a long time the truth is the experience they claim is from their parent.

Unsuspecting web site customers

Most clients of the telco are the every day average people who don’t know who to go to for a website. Let’s face it the industry has zero barriers to entry and therefor lots of dodgy characters.

Unfortunately It’s that simple, businesses trusted the telco because they probably already have a mobile phone or using other services. Maybe some of these businesses spent a few pennies for the initial build and their monthly’s are now around the $100 mark per month with the Telco. Nobody starting a business wants to invest with 10k-20k in a new website if they’re unsure about it’s return on investment.

The new companies strategy to win over businesses so that they’ll be ok with the transfer and not want to migrate

• Enter Duda – For starters most of these website are built on a system called Duda meaning it’s a website builder and hosting platform in one. Not open source so that clients can easily move the website hosting provider to another like WordPress or Drupal.
• Price Cut for clients – Who doesn’t like a price cut and with the Telco many of these clients who were paying $100 per month are now back to $90 with the new company. Sign me up! Not!
• Domains included – As most IT guys will know your domain is your main ownership hub and so having access controlled is super important. I really hate seeing the registrant email set to be a management address of an agency or IT guy which then locks the customer down from “accidentally” transferring the website to another agency but I get why.
• Emails included – There’s some basic, basic email out there that should have been retired years ago. I’m not saying that’s the email provided by the Telco but back in the day you’d get mail with your web hosting package for seemingly free of charge. The new provider is supporting the existing mail platform. If clients had to get a new website every modern agency would migrate the mail to Office 365 or Google Workspaces. Keeping things as is makes it hard for agencies to step in as there’s alot more time involved migrating.
• Short Date – I was only made aware of the handing over of these sites last week but the countdown is on till the end of the month. What I’m finding interesting though is the auto-migration to the “preferred” supplier has already happened. While there’s some telco DNS floating around, out of 20 clients I checked in the Cairns area their key registrant email addresses were set to be the new on**ess**.com email. I don’t know if clients have agreed to this, I suspect they haven’t and it’s just been the Telco’s responsibility to help them out! Speculating here again.
• Pricing Model – Why would an agency that charges 20k for a website want to chase a customer who doesn’t have to pay for their new website and who only has to pay a low $90 per month? The hard work has already been done with the design all be it a sub-standard version of what a real agency would produce. Clients happy though and so they’re only paying for hosting here continuing to collect the AUD$$$ with no migration or rebuild fees. What can a real agency do to combat this? Offer a free rebuild that will take a minimum of 6 hours (many of you are thinking out there 6 hours no way). Is this affordable for these types of clients?
• Why most agencies aren’t jumping on the opportunity – Say an agency pays $500 for a developer to do the work. They’re $410 behind after month 1. Times this by 5 websites a week per dev and they’re paying back the $2500 debt that it’s cost them to do this.
• The other big reason – This is just speculation but clients who don’t have money to spend on a creating a decent website often leads to chasing them for bills and administration headaches. Plus you’re unlikely to get ongoing work from these.
• Why did the Telco “sell” or “simply” give it away? Higher liability and the future of websites could look grim in the light of AI and changes in Google that take away the level playing field that quality benefits from while Google Ads triumphs.
• An opportunity for freelancers? – Developers working for themselves though could make this a decent income “if” they don’t have to turn away real NEW website projects in the process. Doing the work themselves means they’ll still owe themselves $500 but the payback is a lot quicker than if an agency sharing revenue and other overheads.

I’ve been left wondering if it’s worth it for Get Leads. Unless a customer actually wants a new website why rebuild their existing site for $90 per month or $1080 per year? Consider you’re costs come out of this as well. What are you left with?

I can however do 5 in a week and while I’m not going to be paid for those up front I don’t have to design anything and after the first year it’s money in the bank and over a period of time it’s possible to get up to some big numbers.

For this reason I’ve targeting 5 clients who I think are worth the time here in Cairns and sent them emails offering my help.

Most clients will maintain a website for 5-6 years meaning you make 5k out of each and as I said if I do 5 in a week that’s 20k over the life of the those customers done in a week. If I however do 20 in a month that’s more like 80k or 20k extra per year which is worth while.

The issue is if you have 20 clients waiting for up to date 7k websites in a year why would you bother with the others who are more hours supporting these? I’m not sure.

The Telco Website now says:

“We’re no longer building websites, but we’re still here for your business.”

What the Australian Telco Web Services Shutdown means

The shutdown of the biggest telco’s web hosting services means that agencies throughout Australia will be able to adopt clients who want to make the move. This is great news for those working in agency land and marketing, as many clients in that space simply don’t know what to do.

At GetLeads AU, we’re presenting our customers with the option to transfer across. We will make it real simple by offering a free transfer. Free rebuild, like for like of their site at our expense. These builds will generally take 4-6 hours and at $160 per hour usually it’s a saving of almost $960.

We do, however, charge for the entire year upfront as well. This means that they won’t pay their monthlies anymore, their domains is also included in that charge, and essentially they will end up with a brand new website after 1 year and not of paid any more than they would have staying with the telco.

Marketing Web Site Migration without falling on our own Sword

In Cairns the advertising campaign will start on Tuesday 23rd of March with a special qualifier. If a website is old and someone is just holding on to it because they need to tick the website box for their business they’re probably not a good fit for us. If the website is reasonable and they want to use their site as a growth tool then we’re a match. Obviously though the statement about a website being old could be quite subjective and so we’ll run through our opinion and insights with any customers in this bracket.The purpose of this is to make sure only “real” profitable businesses take up the offer.

The Australian telco has sold out it’s subscriber to a “global” trusted partner. While I’m sure they have an office in Australia it means alot of the $AUD is going overseas.

It’s also interesting that the agency they’re transferring it to runs WordPress and not the Duda’s closed platform at least on their main website. It’s the same solution we’re putting forward essentially here in Cairns.

What other web agencies appear to be doing?

Some are doing absolutely doing nothing with the idea that these websites aren’t worth the effort and terrified of the giant suing them for chasing down their clients in what should be an open market.

For the most part, they’re saying, “Let’s build a new site for them and charge them $6,000 or $7,000 at a bare minimum to get their sites recreated.” With some investigation, I figured out that this just isn’t going to work. Essentially, 99% of those clients are small business owners that can’t afford $6,000, not on a whim. The only real option for them is to have it transferred or rebuilt at someone else’s expense which they’re now open to, and that’s what we’re intending on doing.

Where to from here with Telco Websites?

What’s in it for us? Well, essentially it’s the ongoings and building up an Australian team. We want to be able to partner with a client and actually have ongoing work with that client when they need an update done to their website. We are not interested in seeing the clients having to do all the updates themselves we don’t want to see the work go overseas. We will, however, give them direct access to do so if they want to, but it will be essentially a lot easier.

We’re getting around that lie that the do-it-yourself builders claim is kind of the way forward. No-code base, build your own website, all that rubbish is complete smoke and mirrors. The truth is that you need somebody that knows what they’re doing to deliver a website that is going to be effective. It’s not easy and if you’ve been there you know getting text, photos and navigation together isn’t as easy as the shiny DIY builder marketing makes it out to be.

The Website Migration Deal

• We’ll transfer it across free of charge to a new structure.
• We’ll adopt your domain and pay any renewal fees that are on that free of charge providing it’s a .com.au.

More details of the offer can be found via our qualifier page here.

This represents a decent discount for clients if you consider all the plugins and it’s a NEW WordPress site.

You get an upfront meeting with me for one hour that I’ll walk through your existing website and online needs and we’ll talk about what the transfer process entails. At this point in time, you’re free to go somewhere else; you’re not obliged to stay with us. It’s the best possible deal you’ll get for your business though other than staying with your existing Duda website.

Concentrates on the quality customers:

We’re not just taking any old businesses; we are qualifying those businesses that are coming across. Essentially, we want businesses that have got two or more employees and a physical presence. These businesses are the ones that are the bricks and mortar, family-owned, mum and dad businesses that have been going for a long time and are struggling. They’re either small or medium businesses and even the large ones as well. They need to migrate email to a cloud partner such as Google Workspaces or Microsoft 365.

We already host and manage some very large business websites, some of which have over 30,000 members. Our hosting infrastructure is second to none. Most of the time your website and all websites will be scoring an A plus rating on Lighthouse against your competitors.

We run Lightspeed architecture, and they’re Australian-based hosting. The work, consultation work will get done here in Australia, and you’ll always have a person to come back to, to get help with any projects.

Transfer Customer Invoicing Terms

Renewal is also not automatic; you’ll be sent an invoice once a year, and it’s up to you to pay that invoice. You’ll have cutoff of 90 days to do so. That’a real cut-off, no compromises, so after 30 days you’re overdue and get a reminder, after 60 days you get an email. At around the 80 day mark things are looking serious and there’s a phone call and email advising it’s being cut off. We’re not mucking around, it’s costing us money to keep a client site online. The time that goes into this process is time not factored into the $90 per month.