Industry reacts to rising telco complaints

The telecommunications industry must do more to improve customer experience, according to the Communications Alliance. 

The peak body said that the complaint statistics contained in the TIO Six Month Update were disappointing.

“While our industry is dealing with disruption, in part caused by the significant increase in nbn connections and migration to the network, we are disappointed with the high level of complaints in the second half of 2017,” said Communications Alliance Director Program Management Christiane Gillespie-Jones.

“Industry, including service providers and nbn, are working intensely on a range of measures to improve the overall consumer experience.

“Some initiatives around broadband speeds are bearing fruit already and we are pleased to see that the speeds customers are receiving — even during peak hour — are often exceeding the promised speeds, as evidenced in the recent ACCC Broadband Speed Monitoring Report.

“Having said that, we acknowledge that further efforts in various areas of customer engagement across service types are required to better address customers’ needs, and to ensure that initial positive signs turn into a sustained trend of an improved overall customer experience.”

The TIO report underlines that the rollout of the nbn — with close to one million new premises activated in the second half of 2017 — has contributed to the increased complaint numbers.

With ‘provider response’ being the top issue raised by customers who complained in relation to a service delivered over the nbn, industry will be working to improve the end-to-end experience, including through improved assistance between providers in the supply chain to resolve complaints.

However, the large share of mobile complaints (29%) highlights that the rollout of and migration to the nbn are not solely responsible for the increase in complaints, meaning that industry needs to address customer service and complaint handling more broadly.

The 31% share of complaints that involve more than one service type indicates that the telecommunications landscape is very complex and that often issues cannot be attributed to one single cause which may complicate resolution.

“Our industry cannot be satisfied with these numbers and we will continue to implement measures — including through the enforceable Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) Code that is currently being revised — designed to improve the overall customer experience,” said Gillespie-Jones.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/ArtemSam

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