Australia’s top three telcos are responding in timely fashion to customer complaints, according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
The ACMA began investigations of Telstra, Optus and Vodafone in February to determine how well the telcos were meeting a requirement in the Telcommunications Consumer Protection (TCP) code to deliver agreed resolutions to a customer complaints within 10 working days.
“The ACMA is pleased that the investigations indicate that the top three providers are delivering agreed resolutions to customer complaints in the timeframes required by the TCP Code,” said ACMA chairman Chris Chapman.
“It is also apparent that Telstra, Optus and Vodafone have each taken steps to strengthen their complaints-handling procedures since the new TCP Code was registered last September, and has dedicated considerable resources to TCP Code compliance.”
Despite this compliance, a Communications Alliance report released last week found that only 52 per cent of customers who made a complaint about their telecom provider were satisfied with the response. And 50 per cent of telecom customers surveyed reported filing a complaint in the last six months.
In addition, nearly one in five telecom customers said they were unsatisfied with their service, according to the survey.
Also Monday, the Comms Alliance released guidance on how the telecom industry can comply with a TCP code requirement to notify customers when they reach 50 per cent, 85 per cent and 100 per cent of their monthly allowance.
Starting 1 September, large telcos will have to provide alerts within 48 hours of each marker to residential customers on included-value mobile plans and Internet post-pad plans with an included data allowance. The requirement applies only to plans introduced to the market after 1 March.
A similar requirement will apply to small providers in September 2014. Several providers have already begun sending the notifications.
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