Telecom Complaints A-Plenty

Over the past couple of days, our blogs have concentrated on the concept of customer service. Of course, good customer service, or better yet, great customer service is essential to providing the public with a positive impression of your company. As we mentioned, when a company provides bad service to just one person, word-of-mouth helps for many others to hear about it.

Naturally, the last thing you should want as a business owner is for there to be a growing population of people who are dissatisfied with your company. Especially if many of those people did not even experience the bad customer service themselves. Interestingly, earlier today, The QMI Agency’s Stefania Moretti reported about one of the major issues concerning Canadian consumers that is customer service related.

Apparently, complaints against Canadian phone and internet providers are at an all-time high. We can’t help but make mention of the fact that the two customer service-related blogs over the past two days were inspired by a colleague’s story about his recent bad customer service experience with a telecom company.

In Moretti’s report, she writes that “The Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services said it processed 3,522 complaints in 2009-2010, an increase of more than 17% over the previous year” according to the industry’s commissioner for complaints, Howard Maker.

Perhaps, it can be argued that with more cell phone and internet users, more complaints are to be expected. However, it can also be argued that with an increased customer base, businesses should pay even greater attention to providing excellent customer service. According to Maker, the increased complaints come partially as a result of increased public awareness about the CCTS.

In its third year of existence, “the CCTS provides consumers with an independent mechanism for dispute resolution related to billing issues, contract terms, service delivery and credit management for telephone, wireless and Internet services”, Morretti informs us.

For the most part, she continues to explain, legitimate complaints for telecom companies involved billing or contract disputes. Other major complaints were related to delivery, installation and repair issues in addition to unauthorized transfers of service. Of the three major telecommunications companies, Bell received the most complaints, with Telus and Rogers following behind in that order.