Complaints (per 10,000 services) to Australia’s top telcos decreased by 7.9 per cent in 2021–22 according to new figures from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
The data also showed telcos resolved complaints nearly five days faster on average compared to the previous financial year.
There was also a 33 per cent decline in the number of complaints that required the intervention of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO), with 3 per cent fewer complaints escalated to the TIO compared to 2020–21.
ACMA Chair Nerida O’Loughlin said that while the continuing downward trend was encouraging, complaints remain stubbornly high at over one million per year.
“Telco services have become essential to our daily lives, and more than a million complaints per year shows people are still experiencing too many issues with their phone and internet”, Ms O’Loughlin said.
“The industry needs to make further improvements to address common telco pain points—prompt and effective communication, customer service, billing issues and the protection of vulnerable consumers—to drive down customer complaints.
“While the average time taken to resolve complaints has decreased to just over seven days, some telcos are still taking far too long to resolve complaints, with some averaging more than ten days before complaints are resolved,” she said.
“This data pre-dates the recent Optus data breach which can be expected to further increase complaints to Optus and the broader telco sector over the coming months.”
The figures come from ACMA’s annual telco complaints report 2021–22, which contains customer complaints data for more than thirty top Australian telcos.
MR 32/2022