Belgium’s largest cable broadband provider feels the wrath of the Telecommunications Ombudsman
Belgium’s Telecommunications Ombudsman’s Office recorded a 65% increase in the number of disputes in 2023 after five years of decline in the number of complaints submitted. In 2023, the Ombudsman received 17,413 written requests for intervention, and the increase is noticeable both in mediation complaints (from 8,605 in 2022 to 15,168), as well as for requests for investigation of malicious calls and electronic communications (from 1,969 in 2022 to 2,245).
Telenet registered the highest number of complaints in 2023, marking for the first time in the Ombudsman’s more than 30-year existence, that Proximus has been displaced from first place by another operator. Next come the operators Orange, VOO and Unleashed in descending order.
Customers submitted 6,620 complaints to the Ombudsman Service, which is more than three times as many as in 2022, when 1,980 mediations were filed against Telenet. Its annual report provided an overview of the twenty most common and/or notable problems encountered by users. The first fifteen topics described concern structural problems, classified by number of complaints. The next four topics relate to difficulties in contacting the operator. Finally, the twentieth theme concerns the Ombudsman’s non-compliance with mediated solutions.
“The mediation in thousands of complaints shows that the introduction of a new IT platform by Telenet has generally been the cause of numerous persistent problems that have often had major consequences for customers,” stated the Ombudsman.
“The testimonies of the complainants leave no doubt that Telenet’s helpdesk, regardless of the channel chosen, was not prepared for such a large influx of first-line questions and complaints,” stated the Ombudsman. “Customers have had to deal with long waiting times or have had to conclude that they have not been helped, so they have often seen no other option than to appeal to the Ombudsman Service.”
To err is human…
In a lengthy statement, Telenet said that when it implemented a new IT system last year, “this transition did not go as seamlessly as we hoped”.
Happily, the operator has got services back to the complaint levels it was seeing before implementing the new IT system. “These past few months we have spared no effort to structurally resolve the issues with our new IT platform,” said the company in a statement.
“As a result, we are once again able to offer the level of service that our customers are accustomed to receiving from Telenet: our customer service is easy to reach again (from 50 to 98%, with waiting times even shorter than was previously the case) and our service is back to its usual level of effectiveness (first-contact resolution for 8 out of 10 customers),” stated Telenet.
“The number of customers without Telenet services is back to the former level (300 a day) and 99.9% of our billing is on time. At the time of writing, we have migrated 99% of all our customers to the new system,” the company added.
“Based on our positive internal figures, which are once again in line with our figures before the switch, we look to the future with confidence. We are also convinced that the Ombudsman’s figures will drop even further in the next few months,” stated the operator. “Moreover, our customers can also expect to receive an even more personal and tailored service in the future thanks to the new system.”
Painful details
Despite the move to put a brave face on the turnaround, the Ombudsman revealed the pain customers felt through the process – and how it was able to intervene. “Complainants who waited weeks for their telecommunications services to be activated were often able to surf the Internet or watch TV programs a few days later and received acceptable compensation,” stated the Ombudsman. “A few months after the actual request to cancel the Telenet services, the request could still be carried out retroactively.”
It added: “At the same time, the credits were still repaid, after the insistence of the complainants. Unexpected and high mobile data charges, which caused users many sleepless nights, were completely waived after mediation. The beneficiaries of the social rate could breathe a sigh of relief when Telenet again granted the discount on monthly bills and compensated for the missed discounts. Subscribers who have not received a bill for six months were also helped and ultimately only had to pay the three most recent bills.”