Glen brings extensive leadership, governance and financial skills and experience to the TIO. He is a Chartered Accountant and a former Senior Partner at PwC, where his experience included providing audit services in the telecommunications sector.
Glen is the current CEO of Diabetes Victoria and serves on several boards, including Victorian Legal Services Board & Commissioner, The Royal Women’s Hospital and Australian Communities Foundation.
General Manager People and Culture, Gaye Wealthy, believes being awarded an Employer of Choice will make the TIO a competitive employer in the industry. “Our people will choose to stay with us because of the opportunities, their development and our EveryOne culture, where everyone feels safe and welcome. By retaining our people, and developing and building their capability, the TIO also evolves and grows as an organisation. This in turn will mean we deliver our services more efficiently and effectively.”
Complaints made to the TIO as a proportion of telcos’ services in operation increased during January March 2015, compared to the previous quarter – but dropped by 12.2 per cent compared to the same period last year, according to the Telecommunications Complaints in Context report released today.
This section explains the finer points of our data and defines the terms we use in our reports.
Complaints
Where we talk about complaints, these:
Historically, complaints have been tagged against a service (internet, landline, mobile handset etc.). But increasingly, consumer complaints spill across multiple services and would be better characterised by an ‘issue’.
Executive General Manager, Technology, Analytics and Business Improvement, Cathy Thomas, says making these changes allow us to report meaningfully in an ever-changing technological landscape.
“By simplifying how we capture the primary issue raised by consumers, we're able to draw more meaningful member insights and complaints trends,” she said.
Delivery of telecommunications services often involve more than one provider. In some cases, to progress or resolve a complaint, the TIO will require the cooperation of one of the telcos involved in the supply of a service, but who is not the contracting party with the consumer.
For example, an internet problem may not be dependent on a fix from the internet provider, but rather be due to a fault on a network owned by the carrier. When a carrier fails to cooperate with a provider to fix a problem like a network fault, they may be joined to a complaint.
Consumers made 31,297 new complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman in the January-March 2016 quarter, the TIO reports today.
The result was a 32.8 per cent increase from the previous quarter, but a 5.6 per cent decrease from the same time last year.
"January-March is traditionally the TIO's busiest quarter, but we are experiencing a sharper than usual increase this year," Ombudsman Judi Jones said. "Overall, complaints are continuing to trend down."
The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) supports the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) actions to enforce the compulsory membership of the TIO.
The TIO scheme provides a free dispute resolution service for people and small businesses who have an unresolved complaint about their phone or internet provider. Compulsory membership of our scheme ensures consumers have a pathway to resolve complaints they are unable to resolve directly with their provider.