TIO Annual Report 2006/07

Complaint Handling

Definitions

The TIO continues to use four terms to describe how it records the calls, e-mails, faxes, letters and visits that it receives from consumers and small businesses each year.

Contacts
A contact is any communication with the TIO. During the year the TIO received 122,721 contacts from consumers and small businesses, an increase of 14.1% on last year.

Enquiries
An enquiry is a contact about a matter that is either not an expression of grievance or dissatisfaction, or which lies outside the jurisdiction of the TIO. Enquiries also include anonymous complaints, complaints about a service provider that is not a member of the TIO scheme, frivolous complaints or complaints where the consumer has not made any attempt to resolve the matter with their service provider before contacting the TIO. In 2006/07 the number of enquiries was slightly higher than last year. However, as a proportion of total contacts enquiries dropped from 18.6 per cent to 16.5 per cent.

Complaints
A complaint is an expression or grievance or dissatisfaction that falls within the jurisdiction of the TIO and which the member concerned has had an opportunity to resolve before the complainant contacts the TIO. In 2006/07, the TIO received 102,463 complaints that included 95,377 TIO and 7,086 MPSI complaints, an increase of 16.9 per cent more complaints than last year.

Issues
Issues are the specific topics or subjects that consumers complain about. Thus, one complaint may consist of several issues. This year 166,885 issues were recorded, a 30.9 per cent increase on the 2005/06 year.

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