Proportion of small business phone and internet complaints rises

According to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman’s Annual Report 2018–19, although the volume of complaints about phone and internet services from small businesses decreased on the year, the proportion of these complaints jumped to 14.5 per cent from 12.2 per cent in 2017-18.

The main issues affecting small businesses were no action or delayed action by their provider to resolve their phone or internet issue, followed by service and equipment fees, and no phone and internet service at all.

The TIO revealed that the highest proportion of complaints came from the Northern Territory (17 per cent), followed by Western Australia (15.3 per cent) and New South Wales (15 per cent).

Looking at the overall figures, the total number of complaints received by TIO decreased by 21.1 per cent in the last financial year to 132,387.

However, complaints returning as unresolved – where the consumer and provider could not reach a resolution – took longer to close. This year, 47 per cent of escalated complaints were closed within 60 days, compared to 2017-18 when this figure was 77 per cent.

“Complaints about phone and internet services in Australia have continued their downward trend, and this is good news for consumers and the telecommunications industry, but this is only one part of the story,” said ombudsman Judi Jones.

Ms Jones explained that the volume of complaints coming back to the TIO unresolved shows an emerging picture of complexity in technical and small business issues.

“Some measures we have taken to address this are the formation of specialist teams to handle these escalated complaints, and working closely with the phone and internet providers to better understand the barriers to resolving these issues,” Ms Jones added.

The ombudsman revealed that complaints about internet services (43,164) replaced complaints about mobile services (40,103) as the most complained about service type compared to 2017-18.

Service and equipment fees, and no action or delayed action by a provider were the top complaint issues for consumers across internet, mobile and multiple service types, followed by the quality and reliability of internet services, and difficulties establishing a connection with an internet service.

Complaints by state

NT: 696 complaints, down by 33.2 per cent

Qld: 25,102 complaints, down by 23.5 per cent

NSW: 42,868 complaints, down by 19.1 per cent

ACT: 1,989 complaints, down by 19.3 per cent

Tas: 2,068 complaints, down by 30.7 per cent

Vic: 37,926 complaints down by 20.4 per cent

SA: 9,828 complaints, down by 22.4 per cent

WA: 11,845 complaints, down by 21.4 per cent