[LINK] TIO Annual Report

[Adam Todd]

At 12:38 AM 30/11/2006, Stephen Loosley wrote:
>Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman
>Annual Report 2005/06
>
>Internet  services accounted for 18.1% of all complaints, a 44% increase on

Actual numbers rather than percents might be so much more useful.


>The take-up rate of broadband services continues to rise. This increase 
>may be attributed to further reductions in the price and value of 
>broadband and the increased availability resulting from the Federal 
>Government's Connect Australia strategy. This is accompanied by an 
>increase in complaints about broadband: 84.5% of this year's internet 
>complaints involved broadband, compared with 74.3% in 2004/05.

What from 3 last year to 12 this year?

>Customer service
>
>Customer service accounted for almost a third of all internet complaints. 
>It ought to be noted, however, that in many cases the customer service 
>issue is not the primary cause of the complaint. For example, the 
>complainant's original complaint to their provider may have been about a 
>charge on their account, but the matter is subsequently exacerbated by 
>their experience in having the complaint dealt with. What was once a 
>billing complaint therefore becomes both a billing complaint and a 
>customer service complaint.

ROFL!  That's just so typically Australian at the moment.

Person calls to solve a consumer problem.  Aussie Business doesn't give a 
rats  rear end, they have the money and really, taking a phone call from a 
whinging pom ... sorry aussie, is just more cost and time they could 
otherwise spend drinking beer and telling stories about the customer who 
couldn't get the floppy disk in the flash drive port.

Australia, sadly, leads the way in bad attitude when it comes to telephone 
based customer service.  It's not surprise most of the work is sent offshore.

Sure, you get stuck in a tangle of scripts where the operator is trained to 
speak only the english words on the script and tick only the limited number 
of answers that NEVER apply to you, but I have to admit, it's rare I have 
to spend much time on 3 Customer service based out of India, compared to 26 
telephone calls to a telecommunications carrier to get a bill fixed when 
they incorrectly billed hundreds of dollars on a single PSTN line for 
"rental" which they promised was fixed than then a week later threatened to 
suspend the service, then promised it was fixed, and then ....

But then, when you do a job for the money and not the passion and when you 
do a job where you have no ability to actually do the job, it's no wonder 
there are so many frustrated customer service people on telephones being 
screamed at by customers who can't understand why the person who is suppose 
to be in a position to solve the problem can't actually solve the problem 
because they have no authority to solve it.

Telstra is shocking when it comes to customer service operators (CSO) 
solving problems.  In 20 years I've NEVER had a CSO solve a problem on the 
first, second to third contact.  I've had to be escalated at least three 
levels higher before I can even get a call back, and then it takes weeks, 
months, even years, to get the problem solved.

CSO's in many businesses aren't far different and no doubt in the big and 
small ISPs CSO's aren't the core business and in fact are an expense, so 
just shoving some untrained lackie you pay $7 an hour to take the calls 
from screaming customers and giving them no authority to do anything works 
a charm.

And then a month later they wonder why their churn rate is so high and the 
Tribunal hearings are massing!

>Billing
>
>Billing was the second largest category, representing 23.4% of all 
>complaints.

How many is "all"  obviously not 100% and evidently 76.4% were something else.

>This category also includes complaints about payments. Over the past year 
>complaints about direct debits increased by 77.5% to 623 complaints.

Why anyone would allow direct debit by a communications company is beyond 
me.  Be it a credit card or from a bank account.  Once they have your 
money, it will cost you more in time, lost sleep and reduction in age to 
get anything out of them.

The sooner consumers stand up and say "I'll pay my bill, but if you haven't 
delivered the service expected, I'll make you wait."

It actually works, if EVERYONE does it.

But no, Aussies are like "Oh yeah, take my money and if you don't deliver 
the service, well, hey, take some more of my money, and man, the beach is 
soo good, I don't need the service, so take some more of my money."

>This increase coincides with a trend in the telecommunications industry as 
>a whole towards encouraging payments by direct debits. This is often done 
>by providing discounts to customers who agree to pay by direct debit and 
>imposing fees for all other forms of payment..

Now there has to be something illegal or unlawful in that process.

A discount for a direct debit is no different to a discount for a payment 
by the due date.

Hmmm.