The Big Tech Show: Eir complaints staff told ‘under no circumstances’ to provide customers with complaints number

Telecoms company Eir was fined €7,500 in court this week after pleading guilty to 12 counts of breaching regulations governing how complaints should be handled by providers.

However, it says the paragraph relating to staff instructions around customer complaint telephone numbers and websites was “taken out of context”.

It added that this was part of “training material for new customer service agents”, requiring agents to transfer a call rather than asking a customer to call a second time.

On The Big Tech Show this week, Adrian is joined by producer JJ Clarke to discuss the issue.

In an investigation conducted by Telecoms regulator ComReg showed that an Eir training manual directed staff not to process complaints unless customers used certain "trigger words.”

The ComReg inquiry revealed that the manual stated that complaints should only be furthered if customers used certain trigger words or phrases including terms such as “code of practice”, or mentioning ComReg.

You can listen to the full episode on the Irish Independent website or wherever you get your podcasts.