Illustration: Fiona Katauskas. According to a survey released by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman today, complainants often make multiple attempts to try and resolve problems with their company, but are shunted between departments or made promises which are not fulfilled.
Customers then head to the TIO which works with the company to resolve the issue.
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''These consumers who come to us are actually quite resilient. They are not consumers who have just made a single call, Ombudsman Simon Cohen said. ''They have in fact tried quite hard to resolve their matter and only when they are unable to, often over quite a substantial period of time, are they coming to us.''The survey of 516 consumers found 40 per cent had contacted their telephone or internet provider more than six times to try to get their complaint resolved. And 20 per cent had spent more than nine hours trying to fix their problem, while 40 per cent had spent between three and nine hours on the issue.
Only 35 per cent had their matter escalated to a manager, despite 65 per cent requesting it.
Mr Cohen said staff should take more responsibility when fixing consumer problems.
''If you are a front-line worker for a telco you might not be able to resolve the complaint, but it would be great if you knew exactly where to refer the consumer to.''
He said the survey was commissioned to find out why consumers end up with the dispute resolution service. A company is charged about $31 for each complaint, which increases to $260 and eventually $2250 if the matter is not resolved.
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