Australian retailers have been missing an opportunity to deliver strong profits from service that retailers such as Best Buy in the USA, have been doing for several years according to Andrew Hage who is currently rolling out a new mobile repair, support and protection business model in Australia.
This week Brightstar a former distributor of mobile phones to the likes of Telstra, announced a total makeover of the Company. Now called Likewize the business is set to provide a new level of mobile phone service for retailers, B2B businesses and consumers direct.
According to Hage who already has five vehicles on the road in Melbourne, his is biggest problem right now is buying new trucks to facilitate the demand for the service due to automotive Companies, struggling to get processor components for new vehicles.
Hage believes that the “we come to you” service model has major potential in Australia especially as a lot of mobile repairs are done at corner stores or at service counters in shopping centres.
“Today people are not happy leaving their devices to be repaired for an hour with someone they don’t know or trust. How do they know that apps are not being added or data copied”?
“Consumers need to be able to trust a Company who is repairing their device”.
“What we are seeing is an evolution in the industry which is why Brightstar has transitioned into a service Company that can be trusted”. 
“We are not a franchising Company what we will deliver is an operation manned by our employees. We will deliver totally fitted out and purposely built vehicles for repairs”.
“We see this complementing our services. We will also deliver an overarching protection plan for consumers”.
Hage believes that the service can be OEM branded with retailers being able to offer and sell the service to their customers.
He admits that in the future the business could move into repairs for notebooks and other PC related products, at this stage the plan is to focus on mobiles.
“we are looking for OEM accreditation”.
Having worked in the USA for several years Hage has seen firsthand what the likes of Best Buy are doing and in particular the profits that the big US CE retailer is delivering from offering customers a service model for the goods they buy from the big retailer.
Recently the business acquired LucidCX and WeFix, adding tech support and mobile repairs to Likewize’s arsenal of capabilities claims Hage.
“Due to the company changing fundamentally, we knew it was necessary to change the brand to accurately reflect this profound shift,” Millar continues.
“Likewize offers a much stronger sense of our identity and what we want to accomplish. I’ve felt we have been the industries’ best kept secret, and now that is all about to change.”
