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The new Perth office will allow the TIO to extend its operating hours with locally based employees working their local standard hours. This will make the TIO’s dispute resolution services more accessible for all Australians, but especially for those in the west-coast time zone.
The expansion of the office, known internally as Project Kaya*, also enables the organisation to diversify its work force and advertise Perth-based roles. Recruitment is currently underway for a team leader, and subsequent roles will be advertised before the end of this financial year.
But reconciliation is more than just a word. Reconciliation takes action.
For our Victorian-based teams, the personal and the professional continued to collide as the pandemic extended our time of working from home. Our West Australian-based teams had the opportunity to settle in and establish our Perth presence, seeking to expand our operating hours and make deeper connections with the community in the West.
The TIO recorded 33,141 new complaints from January to March 2015, a 12.1 per cent rise on the previous quarter. The figure is still lower than the number of new complaints recorded in the same quarter in 2014 - by 8.6 per cent - or any other January-March quarters since 2007.
“We received an increase in new complaints this quarter, but this is in the context of the continuing decrease in new complaints year-on-year,” Ombudsman Simon Cohen said. “Landlines, internet and NBN-related complaints all increased.
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“I applied for the TIO Board’s Director with consumer experience role in 2019 but wasn’t successful,” said Dana. The role went to Catherine Wolthuizen who Dana describes as an ‘excellent addition to the Board’.
The feedback she received on her unsuccessful application was that she needed more Board and governance experience. Dana used this feedback to propel her on to her next professional step.
The past year has continued to see the trend of declining complaints coming to my office. Complaints dropped 33.4 per cent in the last financial year. Telcos have continued to improve internal dispute resolution processes for their customers and this has been reflected in the complaints we receive. In particular, fault and connection complaints have decreased by 29.8 per cent compared to the previous year.
Through our experience helping small business consumers resolve service complaints with their telco, we’ve come up with some tips for protecting your business when the unexpected occurs.
Before an outage happens, prepare a back-up plan
Most businesses rely on their phone and internet services but many don’t have a back-up plan to protect against financial loss.