Comms Alliance welcomes complaints powers

Telecommunications industry body the Communications Alliance has welcomed the ACMA’s new draft regulatory instruments relating to complaint handling and record keeping.

The organisation’s CEO, John Stanton, said its members would “digest the detail” of the draft and provide feedback to the ACMA on the practicalities and cost implications of implementing the new rules.

Stanton said that some smaller service providers have expressed concern about the level of prescription within the draft Complaint Handling Standard, the documentation requirements and the effect of these on smaller operators.

Stanton added that it would be a challenge to produce a consistent and comparable data set of service-related complaints, as required by the ACMA’s proposed new Record-Keeping Rule.

“This is, in part, because service providers do not necessarily categorise the varying types of customer contacts — including technical queries, complaints or other information requests — in a uniform way,” he said.

“Separating, categorising and reporting on contacts from customers based on the specific nbn access technology that the customer is using might also present operational challenges.

“Also, customers are increasingly using self-help tools such as chat-bots, online assistance and discussion forums to resolve issues, rather than contacting a call centre as a first option.”

Stanton said industry recognised the importance of efficient and effective complaint handling and the need to redouble those efforts, especially given the disruption and additional complexity associated with migrating customers to different technologies on next-generation networks such as the nbn.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/tashatuvango

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