Warning shot to telcos on service

"I’ve raised my concerns directly with the industry on several occasions." Communications Minister Amy Adams

The country’s phone companies have been ticked off by Communications Minister Amy Adams over their customer service performance.

Spark and Vodafone are once again the two most complainedabout companies according to an annual table of complaints made under the Fair Trading Act that was tallied by the country’s competition watchdog.

Spark consumer manager Jason Paris said it was working very hard to improve its customer experience which was its priority, and had seen ‘‘noticeable improvements recently’’.

Vodafone spokeswoman Liesbeth Koomen said it took all customer complaints extremely seriously but sometimes fell short.

The commission’s rankings may partly reflect the two firms’ number of customers.

Vodafone said its 133 complaints were generated from a pool of more than 2.5 million customers.

Spark was unable to provide an equivalent number, but supports more than 4 million mobile, landline and broadband connections. Paris pointed out that just because it was the subject of 140 complaints, that didn’t mean they were valid.

Ultimately, none of the complaints made against Spark in 2015 had been taken forward by the Commerce Commission, he said.

But Adams fired a warning shot over the commission’s observation that Fair Trading Act complaints against telcos had doubled since 2013.

‘‘I’ve been focused on the issue of customer service for some time as I am not happy with the sector’s performance in this regard,’’ she said.

‘‘I’ve raised my concerns directly with the industry on several occasions and I included customer service as an issue to be considered in the regulatory review of the Telecommunications Act for this reason.’’

The number of complaints fielded by the commission doesn’t represent the total of obviously dissatisfied customers.

Like the banks, phone companies have their own independent, voluntary complaints regime – in their case, the Telecommunications Disputes Resolution (TDR) Scheme.

In contrast, consumers with complaints against some other companies in the commission’s ‘‘top 10’’, such as retailer Harvey Norman and Air New Zealand, may have nowhere else to go.

In the year to June 2015, the number of complaints TDR received was up 18 per cent to 1938 – the second-highest number since the scheme began in 2007. TDR is due to publish its 2016 annual report soon

But director Derek Pullen last year cautioned against drawing simple conclusions from its numbers, suggesting the rise might have more to do with increased awareness of the scheme.

The TDR is not allowed by its scheme members to say which firms generated the most complaints. It said ‘‘recurring issues’’ included delays getting UFB connections, disputes over internet data usage, problems transferring between providers and waterdamage to mobile phones.

Online trading community Trade Me generated the thirdhighest number of complaints to the commission, up from fifth last year, with Fair Trading Act complaints up 55 per cent to 121.

Trust and safety head Jon Duffy said all related to the behaviour of sellers on its site, and none about the company itself.

‘‘As the commission notes in its report these are complaints only – we don’t know how many were acted upon or the seriousness of the complaints.’’