Ombudsman’s overview
After nearly three years at the helm, Ombudsman Deirdre O'Donnell recently signaled her decision to step down to pursue her long held ambition to undertake doctoral studies. The next issue of TIO Talks will include a farewell to Ms O'Donnell.
Welcome to our new look TIO Talks – now in a format designed to more readily highlight the issues consumers tell us are important to them.
In this edition we focus on fees, credit management, and direct debits. We believe that the more consumers understand the issues, the better placed they will be to ask the relevant questions and avoid the many pitfalls of dealing with new and sometimes perplexing technologies.
This year’s Annual Report tells a story of large increases in complaints regarding billing and payments, and continued growth in complaints about customer service and complaint handling. While to a degree this reflects the growth in the market for telecommunications products and services, worrying trends towards cutting corners and neglecting customer service are evident in what people are telling us. However, the TIO’s connect.resolve campaign encouraged service providers to re-focus on customers and their experiences. The TIO has reminded industry that these are core business matters. Given its successful impact on telecommunications players, the connect.resolve campaign will continue to be a regular feature of the TIO’s work.
Another Annual Report story and feature of the last edition of TIO Talks, ‘bill shock’ (a term referring to the typical reaction of a consumer or small business who receives an internet or phone bill far in excess of their expectations) also featured prominently in our analysis of the year’s major issues, and has continued to attract widespread attention. The key is for consumers to know what questions to ask, and for phone and internet service providers to supply clear information about usage and charges, when new products and services are being purchased.
But, more positively, as this is likely to be my last TIO Talks as Ombudsman, I would like to leave you with a message of confidence – my confidence that the TIO, as an umpire, has robust systems and innovative strategies in place to meet the present and emerging challenges of alternative dispute resolution in the telecommunications sector. For, as ever, there is still much work to be done.