COMMUNICATIONS ALLIANCE WELCOMES ENCOURAGING ACMA COMPLAINTS DATA

Sydney, 1 April 2020: Communications Alliance has welcomed encouraging new data showing a sharp drop in the volume of complaints being received by Australian telecommunications providers.

The figures released by the industry regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) show telcos received around 283,000 complaints in the 2019 December quarter, a decline of 25.9 per cent compared to the same period in 2018.

Complaints about services operating on nbn-based broadband networks were down 36.4 per cent in the same period. The average time taken to resolve customer complaints also fell markedly, from six days to four, across the September and December quarters.

“This much stronger performance by the Australian telcos is good news for consumers and mirrors the reduction also being experienced in complaints to the industry ombudsman,” said Communications Alliance CEO, John Stanton.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has brought new challenges for the industry, of course, as demand for telco services has grown rapidly and required telcos to augment and reconfigure networks to ensure that customers stay connected and can use their services for personal and professional needs.”

“So far, the networks have held up extremely well under the increased pressure, although unavoidable disruptions to some offshore and onshore call centres have made customer service excellence more difficult to achieve.”