Oftel - The UK regulator for the telecommunications industry

Consumer complaints made to Oftel - the telecoms industry regulator - 3 December 2001

December 2001 – Issue 4
(covers period 1 April to 30 September 2001)

Fixed Line Market: Complaints per 1,000 customers

Mobile Market: Complaints per 1,000 customers

Introduction

This publication provides a broad picture of the level of complaints received by Oftel between 1 April and 30 September 2001. The two graphs highlight the relative performance of the telephone companies named.

Oftel believes that publishing this information provides an important incentive to telephone companies to improve the quality of service they offer to their customers.

Whilst individual consumers may also find the publication of interest, our aim is to put data in the public domain in an accessible way. Oftel believes that other sources of information offer more relevant information to help consumer choice. Examples of such sources are:

Oftel’s leaflet Choosing a telephone company (www.oftel.gov.uk/publications/consumer/consguides/conscatc.htm);
quality of service Comparable Performance Indicators (CPIs) (www.cpi.org.uk);
telephone bill comparisons at www.phonebills.org.uk, and
individual company literature which will detail services and tariff packages.

The complaints data is presented in the form of two graphs:

Fixed Line Market: Company complaints per 1,000 customers (business and residential combined) per 6 months

Mobile Market: Company complaints per 1,000 customers (business and residential combined) per 6 months

Accompanying the company specific data, to give an overall context, is information on the issues most complained about for the period in question.

We believe no useful purpose is served by including data for companies that no longer offer service. Therefore no data on the following companies has been included:

Atlantic Telecom (radio access: shortly to cease trading)
Atlantic Telecom (Indirect access: customer bases purchased by other companies)
NextCall (ceased trading)
RSL.COM (customer base purchased by another company)
Tiscali (World Online) (no longer offers Calls & Access service)
WorldxChange (customer base purchased by another company)

Fixed Line Market

This relates to complaints about all services accessed from a fixed telephone line, including BT service, cable service, indirect access, carrier pre-Selection. Internet service provision is not included.

Oftel received 76 complaints about the following companies, but we were unable to obtain customer base information:

Callmate Telecom
Telco Global Communications

The total consumers who complained about the fixed line market included in this publication are:

18,380

The Top 3 issues during the period were:

	Issue	Example
1	Failure or time taken to repair	"Customer reported a fault on 24 July and it was not repaired until 15 days later. Customer had a number of problems with the work not being done: Engineers turning up without the right equipment. Being advised that work had been carried out when it had not Contractors filling a hole in road, departing and then returning to dig a new hole 10 meters up the road."
2	Complaint ignored by telephone company	"Customer states that he has spoken to customer services on 4 occasions and been promised that a manager would call him back, but no one has."
3	Difficulty contacting telephone company	"On one occasion, when she was trying to contact customer services, customer had to hang on for 1 hour 45 minutes before getting an answer."

Mobile Market

This relates to complaints about all services accessed from a mobile telephone line.

The total consumers who complained about the mobile market included in this publication are:

7,132

The Top 3 issues during the period were:

	Issue	Example
1	Charged for service that has been cancelled	"Cancelled account with company giving 30 days notice, was advised that account would be cancelled on 3^rd May. However, the following month the customer received a bill for £60. Contacted company who said customer made verbal agreement, customer said no, wrote to them. Customer then received a bill for £0 and so thought all had been resolved, but has now received further letter about a debt."
2	Problems with debt collection agencies and credit references	"The customer has now found that he has a credit reference against him for this debt, even though the mobile service provider admits that this bill does not relate to him"
3	Complaint ignored by telephone company	"Customer has contacted mobile service provider on numerous occasions to try and get matter resolved Customer has been advised on several occasions that matter will be rectified – but it is not"

Criteria used for inclusion in the graphs

Only companies with a customer base of 100,000 and above are included. The customer base figures used have been supplied to Oftel by the named companies. Where Oftel does not have data for the time period in question it has used the most recent available data supplied to it. Oftel has also requested and relied upon confirmation from all named companies, in advance of publication that the figures used are accurate.

Analysis is based on the number of consumers who make a complaint with Oftel about a company, and not on the number of issues each consumer raises.

No complaint is included in the analysis where a consumer does not provide either:

a full postal address; and/or
an email address; and/or
a contact telephone number.

The analysis will not differentiate between business and residential customers.

The published data will cover complaints received from the whole UK population and will not seek to distinguish between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland or between regions.

Oftel will rely on the latest customer base information supplied to it by companies. The onus is therefore on companies to continue to supply regular customer base information. Oftel will contact companies close to the publication date to confirm base numbers. Where no confirmation is received Oftel will use the last available information.

A complaint is defined as consumer expression of dissatisfaction relating to their company or service.

Calculation for graphs:

1000 * A / B

where

A = Total number of Consumer complaints to Oftel about a company in the 6 month period,
B = Average population of customer base for company during the 6 month period.

Graph Scale: Results are to 2 decimal points, in multiples of 0.1

Further details can be found here in Oftel’s October 2001 Statement on Publication of Consumer Complaints made to Oftel.