Telcos are getting slower at fixing customer issues: report

It is taking Australian telcos longer to fix customer issues despite a drop in the number of service complaints.

Telcos are taking longer to resolve customer issues despite having to deal with fewer complaints, a report has found.

Australian telcos are taking longer to deal with customer concerns and complaints despite the total number of issues dropping, a new report has found.

About 63 per cent of all complaints – or 35,748 complaints – that the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman received between July 2023 and June 2024 regarded telcos delaying action or not acting at all on customer issues.

A further 33.8 per cent – or 19,178 complaints – were related to service and equipment fees, while the remaining 11.9 per cent – 6730 complaints – were related to no phone or internet service.

The total number of complaints about providers over the past 12 months dropped 14.6 per cent to 56,718. However, TIO ombudsman Cynthia Gebert said the level of customer frustration was concerning.

“It’s pleasing to see overall complaints declining, however, the data shows that consumers remain frustrated by the same issues: poor customer service, delays in fixing problems, and service and equipment fees,” Ms Gerbert said.

About 36 per cent of complaints regarded fault testing which customers said had not been “properly addressed”.

Mobile services attracted the majority of complaints, at about 43.5 per cent, while internet services followed closely at 39.4 per cent. One of the most common issue of complaint for both services was “no or delayed action” by the provider, followed by service and equipment fees.

Australia’s largest telcos, Telstra and Optus, accounted for the largest number of inquiries, recording 27.1 per cent and 23.5 per cent respectively. Inquiries regarding Telstra increased by 17.2 per cent, while inquiries about Optus were 23.8 per cent higher.

During the period the complaints were compiled, Optus had a national outage, when some 10 million Australians were left without phone or internet service, and about 2700 were unable to contact triple-0.

A Telstra spokeswoman told The Australian that while any complaint was “still too many”, the telco was happy to see the number drop.

She added that bringing Telstra’s customer call centres back into Australia and bringing its “retail stores in-house” had also contributed to less complaints.

The Australian Communication Media Authority also released a report on telco complaints which found the time companies were taking to deal with issues had increased by an entire day. ACMA also recorded a drop in the number of complaints, 899,691 in total, down from just over 1 million the previous year, however resolution times increased to an average of six days, up from 5.2 the previous year, it found.

Samantha Yorke, ACMA’s consumer lead, said telcos simply weren’t doing enough.

“The time taken to resolve complaints is going in the wrong direction, which is very frustrating for telco customers,” Ms Yorke said.

“People need to feel confident that their telco services will work as expected, and that if something goes wrong, effective and timely action will be taken by their telco to fix it.”

A senate inquiry into the Optus outage recommended telcos be classified as “critical infrastructure providers” and provided “more transparent communications”.

The TIO shared a similar view, with Ms Gebert adding that the services were “essential” and the issues needed to be resolved faster.

“Telecommunication services are essential; we rely on them for our health and wellbeing, access to government services, employment, and community connections. It’s critical that consumers receive timely assistance when issues arise,” she said.

It comes as many major corporations, including telcos, switch to automated systems and artificial intelligence-powered chatbots to deal with issues, like Aussie Broadband’s new challenger telco Buddy.

Ms Yorke said ACMA wanted to see the industry working faster to rectify issues.

“Whether the complaint is about a phone or broadband service, potentially impacting people’s ability to work or connect with family and friends, or incorrect charges being applied, or other issues, telcos need to act quickly to rectify the problem and we would like to see a greater focus on this across the industry,” she said.