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Spark, One NZ and 2degrees are pushing back against a proposal they be forced to prominently display a “dashboard” showing their ranking in customer service surveys, on their websites and in their stores.
One NZ appeared to question whether the proposal from the Commerce Commission might be unlawful, after commissioning a legal and economic opinion from lawyer James Every-Palmer KC and consultant Nera.
Their joint report said the proposal had a number of “serious failings” and the commission had not demonstrated a case for intervention.
Spark experienced a major customer service meltdown on Tuesday and Wednesday when its Xtra email service failed and it was unable to provide support in its stores or online.
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It also suggested in its March submission that the commission was over-reaching, saying the Commerce Commission would be crossing a line and it was important it did not “distort, steer or determine competition”.
Spark said the commission should work with the industry to improve the information that was available to customers “before it contemplates punitive regulatory interventions”.
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A mock-up shows what the Commerce Commission’s customer service dashboard could look like.
2degrees also voiced concerns about the requirement to display customer service ranking, saying it was important any new regulations were “justified and proportionate”.
Some smaller providers made similar points, but the response from groups representing customers has been mixed.
Consumer NZ supported the commission’s proposals, saying half of mobile customers and 45% of internet users had experienced “unhelpful customer service” at least once during the past year, according to its surveys.
But the Tech Users Association said it would be comfortable if it was only voluntary for telcos to display their rankings in the proposed customer service dashboard.
A spokesperson for the Commerce Commission said it was still analysing the submissions “and what this means for the dashboard”.
“No decisions have been made yet,” she said.
Telecommunications commissioner Tristan Gilbertson suggested the customer service initiative in December, saying it could help address what he described as a “paradox”.
The performance of the country’s broadband and mobile networks had “gone from the back of the OECD pack to the front of the pack” in 10 years, but consumer complaints were persistently high, he said.
“We’ve decisively closed the gap with the OECD in terms of technology, but we now have a new gap that needs to be closed,” he said then.
Gilbertson said he got the idea for making telcos front up on their customer service records when he visited a branch of NatWest bank in London a few years ago to withdraw some cash.
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) began ordering UK banks to prominently display survey results on their service quality in 2016, after finding consumers had limited information on which to base decisions when they shopped around for a bank.
One NZ said in its submission that the CMA had taken that step in response to a competition problem that did not exist in the telecommunications market in New Zealand.
The commission’s proposal would reward telcos that offered only “basic services” and that resolved problems, rather than those that avoided problems in the first place and offered more innovation services, it said.
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