TIO Annual Report 2006/07

Case study - Customer Service

The complaint

A man told the TIO that, for about five months, the e-mails his friends had sent him were on occasion being returned as “undeliverable”.

He said he had repeatedly tried to discuss this with his service provider, but due to his hearing impairment he believed the ISP was routinely terminating his calls. Due to the fault and customer service issues, he wanted to be reimbursed for half the amount he had paid during the five months.

TIO response

The TIO requested that the ISP contact the customer in a manner appropriate to his needs as one of the main obstacles to resolution of the complaint appeared to be the communication difficulties. The complainant said he had no problems communicating via a standard landline. But the delays and echoes he experienced while trying to speak with his ISP, which used a VoIP service for its customer service centre, compromised his understanding. At the same time, the complainant also told the TIO that his ISP was cancelling his service because he had contacted the TIO.

The ISP said that it had communicated successfully with the customer on several occasions. It would have been willing to contact him via a landline, but its infrastructure did not allow this. It suggested a more suitable method of communication would be via the National Relay Service, which specifically caters for people with hearing difficulties, or e-mail, which it had attempted with some success.

It said that the customer had not consistently received the technical support he required because he had repeatedly refused to provide his password. The customer had refused to participate in trouble-shooting tests. His service was not being cancelled because he had contacted the TIO, but because he had been abusive towards the ISP’s staff. As the customer’s contract had expired, the company said it was not obliged to continue to provide the service.

The customer confirmed that he had refused to provide his password, believing this to be a breach of his privacy. He also confirmed that he had chosen not to help the ISP trouble-shoot. He accepted that the ISP was not obliged to continue to provide him with a service, but still believed that, due to the fault issue, he deserved a refund and almost $500 in costs he had incurred.

The outcome

There were four main issues the TIO was required to consider:

• By not taking his hearing impediment into account, had the ISP denied, or made it difficult, for the customer to receive the technical help he needed?
• Had the customer actively participated in trying to resolve the problems he claimed to have experienced?
• Was the ISP within its rights to discontinue providing the service?
• Was a refund a “fair and reasonable” outcome?

The TIO found:

• The ISP was not obliged to call the customer on a landline. It had offered to communicate by e-mail and the National Relay Service. If the customer had communicated via either method he would not have been disadvantaged.
• The ISP’s customer care notes and the TIO’s dialogue with the customer confirmed that he had not attempted to resolve the complaint in a meaningful manner. The notes demonstrated that he had a history of abusing and threatening staff, behaviour the TIO considers unacceptable.
• Generally speaking, every business is entitled to choose its customers and it is unrealistic to expect that every company can provide a service to each individual who requires it. In this instance the customer was out of contract, so the ISP and the complainant could cancel at any time, subject to the notice period required.
• The customer care notes also showed that, while the complainant said he had been experiencing faults for five months he had not told his ISP until after he contacted the TIO. The usage data provided by the member proved that, while a fault may have been experienced, the service had been used extensively throughout the period in question.

No refund was provided but, as a courtesy, the ISP offered to extend the service for an additional month to allow the complainant to find another plan.

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