Watch out carriers or we'll fight you on TV: ACCAN head

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 26 August 2009 13:46

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

"You'll never find ACCAN critical of profits that are earned by providing good service. But you will find us always critical if the level of service is poor," Mr Asher said.

"So when Telstra introduced the $2.20 payment for paying bills by other than EFT we were very critical because it comes at the same time as your appalling level of customer service.

"There will be many here shaking their heads and complaining that ACCAN will be just another obstacle to business. If that's the approach that you want to take then I'll look forward to meeting you elsewhere - perhaps in the pages of the papers or investigative TV programs. For those who want to work with us, I'll be equally delighted to meet with you as well."

According to Mr Asher, telecoms consumers in Australia are getting the short end of the stick by service providers. He warned telecoms representatives at the summit that they will soon face the consequences of a backlash.

"In Australia at present consumers are getting a pretty lousy deal from this sector of the economy and I believe that's one reason that ACCAN was established," he said.

"Simply to say that consumers are dissatisfied with the level of service is quite an understatement. From my experience in Europe, the United States and elsewhere, the level of dissatisfaction is going to bring more pressure on this sector and you'll be faced with that obvious crunch question of fix it or get out."

Mr Asher hinted strongly that Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman figures indicate that Australia has worse service standards in the industry than the UK.

"Looking at the graphs with the spike of complaints last year, what strikes me is that the numbers of issues dealt with are on a par with the number of complaints in the UK - an economy with three times the population," he said.

"Either Australians have taken up complaining with a greater gusto than I thought or that the practices here are actually worse than in the UK.

"The insult added to injury, as bad as the number of complaints are, these are made worse by the proportion of those which are complaints about the process of resolving them, where promises are made to return calls, to reduce bills, to send information, to change addresses. It seems that almost routinely they're ignored and this bringing the industry into disrepute."

Mr Asher pointed to bundling of services as a major source of problems.

"Economically, bundling can be quite a sensible thing to do but it does permit this problem of information overload. Consumers find it very hard to make rational informed decisions in those circumstances. They start out already annoyed with suppliers."