Telecom complaints commission buoys customer confidence

Opinion

As much as Canadians’ wireless, home internet and television services are pretty much indispensable, costs of those services seem to be increasingly expensive. That’s probably at least partly why everybody loves to complain about their telecommunications providers.

Amid the anger — expressed in talk about poor service, incorrect billing or misleading advertising — you could get the impression we’re being subjected to substandard service with no recourse to holding the providers to account.

That is really not the case.

It’s true for the six months ending Jan. 31, such total complaints increased by a whopping 43 per cent over the same period the prior year. But that there is even a fairly accurate accounting of the number of complaints should give Canadian consumers a little less reason to worry about the credibility of service providers.

The stats come from an organization called the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS), a $10-million per year operation with about 100 employees whose job it is to resolve industry complaints.

It doesn’t cost consumers a penny to make a complaint, and it’s got a pretty impressive track record of resolving close to 90 per cent of issues within 20 days or less.

In fiscal 2022-23 (Aug. 1, 2022 to July 31, 2023) there were close to 15,000 complaints, up 14 per cent from the same time frame the year prior.

While that may sound like an awful lot of complaints, if there were 15 million different telecom accounts in the country (there are probably more than that, as Canada pushes toward a population of 40 million) that means 0.1 per cent of account holders needed to file a complaint.

By any standard, that’s not a bad average.

The fact the CCTS’s annual budget is paid for by the service providers themselves — which includes $3 million in fees those providers pay the CCTS per complaint — it’s one of those rule-of-law institutions our society gets to enjoy even if it is not aware it exists.

Howard Maker, CCTS commissioner since the organization was founded in 2008, is justifiably proud of its track record.

“I confess my bias, but this is really a great service that Canadians can avail themselves of when they need it,” he said.

Maker will not get into the rationale for the relative increase in recent complaints, other than to note inflationary pressures may have made people scrutinize their cellphone bills a little more closely.

(In the most recent mid-year report, ending Jan. 31, incorrect charges for monthly price plans became the top issue of complaint for the first time.)

Although the CCTS does not really have enforcement powers to compel the telcos to co-operate, it’s a close relative to the CRTC, which very much does have those kinds of powers.

If a telco is not co-operating with the CCTS, one recourse it has is to revoke the company’s membership. The CRTC requires all telcos and TV service providers in Canada to participate in the CCTS process.

The CRTC has the authority to hold a hearing and, if the telco is found to be in contravention of its agreement to participate in the CCTS process, it can be fined.

“The telcos’ participation is mandatory and it is enforceable, although it is a bit of a circuitous enforcement route,” Maker said.

During its history, the four major telcos and 400 odd service providers that participate in the CCTS have had a functional, if not constructive, relationship.

“We have bones to pick with the telcos from time to time and vice versa,” Maker said. For example, earlier this year it was determined 52 per cent of audited service providers’ websites did not have an easily accessible complaints section.

However, the CCTS is not a replacement for the companies’ individual customer relations departments. One of the few requirements of complainants is they give the provider a “reasonable opportunity” to resolve the issue before the CCTS steps in.

Resolution of complaints within 20 days is not bad, although it might seem like an eternity if one’s online connectivity is impaired. The compensations the resolutions produce are not insignificant.

In the last fiscal year, more than 80 per cent of the CCTS complaints in which compensation was awarded (about 7,000) were for less than $500; 74 of them, however, resulted in compensation of $5,000 or more.

Canadian telecommunications service providers may not always be viewed by their customers as the best or cheapest in the world. However, a complaints mechanism that successfully operates with grudging respect and co-operation should help keep consumer confidence high.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca