By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC is asking Canada’s major telecommunications service providers to explain how their employees are informing customers about the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS), after the regulatory said it found an unsatisfactory number of survey participants even knew it existed.
The regulator commissioned a survey by Nanos Research, which found only 2 per cent of participants who had an unresolved complaint were made aware of the organization by their service provider. The research was delivered in March.
“This finding is supported by consumer feedback data in the CCTS’s annual reports from 2015 to 2023, which shows that only 8% to 13% of customers who contacted the CCTS about an unresolved issue learned about it from their service provider,” the CRTC said in a Tuesday letter to Bell, Rogers, Telus, Cogeco, Eastlink, Quebecor, SaskTel, Xplornet, and the CCTS.
The regulator is asking these service providers to address the following by December 6: How do they monitor their customer service representatives’ compliance with the requirements to inform customers about the CCTS? For complaints referred to the CCTS, on average, how many days did it take to have the complaint referred to the CCTS from the initial receipt of the complaint? The CRTC is also asking for the scripts and training materials for customer service representatives related to the complaint escalation process and informing customers about the CCTS.
Nanos also found that 84 per cent of respondents said they would go to their service provider if they had a complaint, 7 per cent said they would search online, and 5 per cent said they would contact the CRTC. Less than 1 per cent mentioned unpropted that they would go to the CCTS.
“Examining the experience for those with a recent complaint, nearly all respondents who reported having had a complaint related to their service provider in the last 12 months reported having contacted their service provider to try to resolve the complaint (99%), while 1% reported having asked their family and friends for help, and less than 1% each reported having searched online or taking no action. No respondents reported having contacted the CCTS,” the report added.
Just over half of respondents (55 per cent) with a complaint who contacted their service provider reported that their service provider was able to resolve their complaint, “leaving more than four in ten unresolved by the provider (43%), or unsure if their provider resolved the complaint (3%),” the report added.
The Nanos survey, conducted between January 31 and February 19, 2024, was comprised of 1,301 Canadian subscribers, 18 years and older, across Canada and in each province and territory. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
