Telstra and Optus improve services complaints

Complaints to telcos have dropped by 3.1 percent over the last quarter, according to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO).

The decrease was mostly driven by improvements from Australia's two largest teclos Optus and Telstra, according to the TIO.

The data reported represents the number of TIO complaints per 10,000 services in operation (SIO) from July to September.

Telstra went from 6.8, between April and June, to 6 complaints per 10,000 services.

"Our teams are working hard so fewer customers give up on us by introducing additional interventions to help resolve customer issues at source," said a Telstra spokesperson.

"We know we still have a long way to go and will maintain our strong focus on advocacy to improve the customer experience."

In June, Telstra announced a $250 million investment to improve its networks following several outages.

Optus went from 7.7 to 7.2 in the last quarter.

"Optus is pleased to note a decrease in the number of new complaints into the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman for the second consecutive quarter this year," said a spokesperson.

Optus identified a number of areas requiring attention and the subsequent solutions that were implemented have attributed to the reduction of complaints, according to the telco. This includes network upgrades to reduce fixed congestion, improved service provisioning processes and increased focus on training for customer service agents.

After a constant period of decrease, Vodafone's complaints almost doubled compared to the previous quarter, going from 3.8 to 6.2 complaints per 10,000.

"We are proud to have set new industry benchmarks for complaints reduction during 2015 and 2016, and are pleased our ratio of complaints remains in line with the industry average," said a spokesperson for Vodafone.

"In the year to date, Vodafone’s escalated complaints, which are cases where the TIO believes a satisfactory response has not been provided to a customer, are at record low levels. Further, the total number of Vodafone cases received by the TIO in the year to date has reduced by almost one third year on year."

Amaysim went from 0.8 in the last quarter to 1.1 complaints and Pivotel from 1.0 to 1.3.

The average result across all participants was 6.2.

Despite the drop, a comparison with the same period in 2015 reveals a 16.4 percent increase in the total amount of complaints. Between July and September 2015 a total of 5.5 new complaints per 10,000 services were registered.

Complaints in Context reports on the number of new TIO complaints as a proportion of services. TIO data for new complaints comprises landline, mobile and internet services from residential and small business customers covered by the Telecommunications Consumer Protection (TCP) Code.