Telecommunications is an essential service. It is vital that customers can contact their telco to have enquiries or complaints dealt with quickly.
We audited how telcos are meeting their contactability and customer service obligations under the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code and the Complaints Handling Standard. We wanted to find out if telcos had recovered from the disruptions to their business and call centres in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We collected information from 11 telcos for the 6-month period to June 2021. This included 3 ‘digital-preferred’ telcos that rely primarily on contact methods such as mobile apps and web chat to support their customers.
The data included:
- the contact methods used by customers
- the average time customers are waiting in call queues
- whether telcos are meeting their complaint acknowledgement timeframes.
