25th January, 2011
Last week, Ade Busari, a journalist with a national daily, had a problem with his phone line. He could only receive calls but could not make calls. Since there was no customer care centre in his area, he decided to try the customer care line.
For one hour, he consistently continued to try the line. The only response he got was the usual recorded female voice saying that he should wait on the line as the network agents were attending to other customers. After trying for over two hours, Busari gave up. His only option was to go to a customer care centre where he would wait for over three hours to be attended to.
Busari’s experience is exactly what every subscriber goes through in an effort to use the call centre toll free lines. With no exceptions, all the telecomms company currently operating in the country are guilty of this crime. Some may take shorter time to response but hardly will any pick your call at first dial.
Initially when the subscriber base was just growing, the major operators paid much attention to customer’s complaints through their care lines. Back then, they would pick the calls within three minutes at most. The situation has, however, gradually become worst with the increasing number of subscribers.
It is understandable that with the increased number of subscribers comes the added challenge of dealing with consumers’ problems. However, the growing complaint over these same issues by subscribers shows that either the telecomms companies do not have the capacity to handle the situation or their agents are just redundant.
It even appears that some telecomms companies have even made the care lines an avenue to force their advert on the unwilling subscriber whose only care was just to get his or her problem fixed. For those who are fortunate to be attended to in less than an hour, he or she would have listened to over seven advertisements within the waiting period.
Visiting the customer care centres which is the alternative to call centre inefficiencies, is usually a nightmare for subscribers. Depending on which period of the day the subscribers get to any of the centres, the average period of attending to one person is about an hour.
Consumer’s Advocate as part of its social services condemns this unbecoming inefficiencies of the telecomms companies. It is not enough to provide services and pursue more subscribers, the quality of the services provided matters a lot. Of what use is a network when one has to wait endlessly on a line just to get a simple problem solved?
We urge all telecoms companies operating in the country to seriously look into this issue as it is not only frustrating but annoying. With more subscribers coming on board, more agents should be employed. The recent customer care statics by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) that one agent attends to about five thousand subscribers is grossly inadequate.
NCC on its part should wield the big stick and sanction defaulting telecoms companies that are unwilling to change. It is not enough to warn or caution these companies, a precise disciplinary measure should be taken on one of the operators to drive home the message that such inefficiency would no longer be tolerated.