Telecoms services users satisfied, but complaining a lot more

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 23 June 2009 09:26

Business IT - Technology

The ACMA has released results of its survey of consumers' and SMEs' satisfaction with fixed, mobile and broadband services reporting high satisfaction levels with most services, but noting also a very large increase in the level of complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.

The report, the final in a series of three consumer-related reports published over the past twelve months,  covers research findings into satisfaction levels among household consumers and SMEs with their Internet, mobile and fixed-line communications services.

According to the ACMA, "The report reveals that, overall, Australians are especially satisfied with traditional, fixed-line phone services. Among SMEs, satisfaction levels come close to 90 percent."

ACMA chairman, Chris Chapman, said: "The study indicates that three quarters of Australian consumers are satisfied with their communications services, while, if they are not, there is an increasing number of consumers likely to change service providers or complain to authorities such as the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) – both of which are positive outcomes."

Data for the report was gathered for year to 30 June 2008, primarily in the first six months of 2008. The sample, however was quite small - Roy Morgan Research surveyed 1396 fixed line users and 241 mobile users not connected to a fixed line service, and the ACMA acknowledged that the small sample size had limited the value of some results.

For example there was good news for VoIP service providers: satisfaction levels were as good or better as those for standard PSTN services, but with the caveat that "These figures have been derived from a very small sample and are thus subject to high standard errors.

For SMEs the ACMA used the Sensis Business Index data and commissioned Sensis to conduct telephone interviews with 1800 SMEs.

Despite the high level of satisfaction reported, the report notes that: "Customer service complaints [to the TIO] saw the largest increase over the past 12 months [to 30 June 208] particularly when [a new TIO category] of [service providers'] complaints handling figures are taken into account. These two categories accounted for one third of fixed line complaints in 2007-2008."

Complaints about mobile phone spiked similarly with complaints about contracts almost doubling and complaints about service faults up 60 percent.