Misleading sales calls for NBN services
The issue
In November 2018, we notified Silver Telco* about a trend of similar complaints to our office, in which consumers said Silver Telco misled them during sales calls offering its NBN plans.
The investigation
While Silver Telco agents correctly identified themselves, there were a number of cases where the agent gave inaccurate information about the NBN plan (for instance, about the pricing, contract term, or expected data speed).
In addition, we found there was an opportunity to improve the way Silver Telco agents read out the terms and conditions which was often too fast and difficult to understand.
The outcome
In response, Silver Telco completed a comprehensive review of its telemarketing sales system, process and practices and implemented a number of changes.
The changes included:
- a fully automated voice recording of the terms and conditions of its NBN plans
- requiring all sales agents to recap the key details of the consumer’s proposed plan before the consumer agrees to sign up
- an updated sales quality assurance framework with a new call monitoring process and disciplinary structure, and
- new learning and development, and training processes.
We are still working with Silver Telco and continue to monitor to confirm the changes result in a reduction in complaints to our office.
*Names of individuals, organisations and companies have been changed.