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Speaker 1: The Ombardsman, the telecommunication Ombardsman, has revealed telco customers are

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Speaker 1: doing it tough, with more than seventy five percent of

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Speaker 1: Australians experiencing some form of vulnerability. I seem communication vulnerability

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Speaker 1: in the last year. Let's put that to Cynthia Gabert,

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Speaker 1: who is the telecommunications industry umbardsman, who joins me. Now, Cynthia,

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Speaker 1: good morning, Good morning.

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Speaker 2: That's here.

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Speaker 1: What do you mean vulnerability? What type?

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Speaker 2: Well, when we were looking at you know, we've talked before,

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Speaker 2: Matthew about our complaint volumes have continued to trend down,

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Speaker 2: and we also know in our real lives that people

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Speaker 2: are doing it tough, as you said, so we wanted

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Speaker 2: to understand what was going on. And we often think

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Speaker 2: about vulnerability in financial hardship terms only, but in looking deeper,

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Speaker 2: you know, there were other things that were stopping people

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Speaker 2: from raising complaints, like personal illness, mental health challenges, death

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Speaker 2: of a close friend or a family member. That all

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Speaker 2: plays into, you know, I think a broader definition around

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Speaker 2: those that are doing it tough.

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Speaker 1: Okay, what can be done? How can you help? How

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Speaker 1: can the industry help.

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Speaker 2: One of the things that came through in that research

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Speaker 2: was that people are sometimes a bit overwhelmed and so

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Speaker 2: they're not complaining, or they feel like it's not going

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Speaker 2: to make a difference, or the process is all a

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Speaker 2: bit too hard. So we're convening a tough course of

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Speaker 2: industry but also importantly getting key representatives from consumer and

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Speaker 2: community organizations involved so that we can actually start understanding

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Speaker 2: how process works for real life people. You know, to

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Speaker 2: what extent is it too hard or do you have

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Speaker 2: to wait on hold? And what a consumer and community

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Speaker 2: organization hearing, and how do we actually get the industry

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Speaker 2: to understand that it's a key trust building exercise to

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Speaker 2: actually make it easier for people to exercise their right

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Speaker 2: to complaint.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So I imagine complaints primarily, but not

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Speaker 1: all them, obviously, would revolve around charges. Trying to understand

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Speaker 1: what people are being charged for.

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Speaker 2: Is that number one, it's one of the top ones,

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Speaker 2: But it's also things like intermittent service or dropout coverage

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Speaker 2: issues and that you know, the perennial know or delayed service.

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Speaker 2: You know, they're poor customer service. So you know, there's

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Speaker 2: still opportunity to work on some of the things that

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Speaker 2: i'd call more bread and butter. Complaints because that goes

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Speaker 2: to help confident people feel engaging with a complaints process.

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Speaker 1: How important is it then that the call centers people

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Speaker 1: are trying to reach to have some of this address

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Speaker 1: there based here in Australia as opposed to overseas.

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Speaker 2: I think different consumers have different expectations of who they're

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Speaker 2: going to engage with, and that's the all processes need

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Speaker 2: to work for the variety of different people that there are.

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Speaker 2: You know, some people are quite happy to deal with

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Speaker 2: the chatbot. Other people want to speak to Australian based

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Speaker 2: call centers. The challenge for the telco industries to make

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Speaker 2: sure it works for the people that are paying their bills,

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Speaker 2: the people that are using it, so that you know,

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Speaker 2: it's not a one size fits all because some people

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Speaker 2: are very happy to talk to overseas contact centers, others less.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so you're establishing a Telecommunications Accessibility task Force, Now,

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Speaker 1: how will that work? What's its intent?

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Speaker 2: It is that task force is very much focused on

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Speaker 2: in working across different sectors to build a greater understanding

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Speaker 2: around how do you actually make your complaints processes. Your

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Speaker 2: process is generally accessible to people who might be experiencing

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Speaker 2: all sorts of different vulnerabilities and just making it easier

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Speaker 2: for people to exercise their right to complain. And it

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Speaker 2: is very much focused on action and making sure there

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Speaker 2: are changes made across the tel code and make it

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Speaker 2: easier for consumers to exercise their right to raise concerns.

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Speaker 1: You won't need people calling into that, will you or

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Speaker 1: commenting to that you know what the issues are. This

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Speaker 1: is mainly for companies to work with companies to find solutions.

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Speaker 2: It is about the telco industry working across the industry,

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Speaker 2: but also having key consumer organization and consumer voices. There's

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Speaker 2: a consumer people, you know, frontline financial counseling organizations, who

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Speaker 2: is here day in day out, what works and what

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Speaker 2: doesn't and actually, you know, bringing to life. We can

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Speaker 2: talk about data, but bringing to life the real human

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Speaker 2: impact because behind all the data behind you, I can

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Speaker 2: say X percentage increase or that percentage decrease. That's a

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Speaker 2: human that's a real life impact on how people are

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Speaker 2: engaging with their essential fits.

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Speaker 1: I suppose if this all works out the way you're

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Speaker 1: thinking it will, Cynthia, this will lead to a drop

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Speaker 1: off in complaints. Ultimately down the track a year or two,

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Speaker 1: you should be able to start seeing this happen.

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Speaker 2: I would like to hope so, Matthew, you know, one

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Speaker 2: of our key functions is to build trust and confidence

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Speaker 2: between consumers and the industries. So if we can make

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Speaker 2: it easier for people to confidently exercise their rights, ultimately

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Speaker 2: we will see that decreasing complaints in the long term.

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Speaker 1: How many people do you think out there percentage eyes

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Speaker 1: aren't complaining when things go wrong.

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Speaker 2: What we do see is, you know, through that data

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Speaker 2: that we shared is half you know, the research revealed

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Speaker 2: that fifty five percent of the surveyed Australians have experienced

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Speaker 2: at least one problem with their telco in the last year,

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Speaker 2: but only seventy seven percent of them chose not to

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Speaker 2: make a complaint. So you know that that gives you

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Speaker 2: a sense of how many people are giving up notwithstanding

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Speaker 2: they're having a problem. And you know, we do see

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Speaker 2: some success from the telco is doing a good job

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Speaker 2: around resolving things to their internal processes. I'd like everyone

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Speaker 2: who has a concern to actually get to the internal

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Speaker 2: processes of businesses and for them to be as easy

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Speaker 2: as possible for consumers to navigate.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Well, if people do have an issue and they've

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Speaker 1: tried solving it with their tailcoat whatever it might be,

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Speaker 1: internet or phone or whatever. Where should they go next?

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Speaker 1: What's your office? Just tell Communications industry office, um budsmoth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So, if you have raised your complaint with your

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Speaker 2: company and you haven't got a fund reasonable outcome, where

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Speaker 2: independent and we have free cool number one eight hundred

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Speaker 2: zero six two zero five eight, or you can lodge

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Speaker 2: a complaint online at TiO dot com dot au and

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Speaker 2: we'll work with you and your provider to try and

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Speaker 2: come up with a ferre and reasonable outcome.

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Speaker 1: Cynthia, look forward to seeing how this goes over the

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Speaker 1: next year or two. Thank you for your time this morning.

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Speaker 2: Thank you Matthew Cynthia.

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Speaker 1: Gabert, who is the Telecommunications Industry on bandsman on the

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Speaker 1: fact they're going to form a Telecommunications Accessibility Task Force

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Speaker 1: to address barriers within the telecommunications industry telcos regarding customer accessibility,

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Speaker 1: which is a good move and should should help out

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Speaker 1: long term. Thank you, Cynthia to that that should work

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Speaker 1: out well, hopefully at least that's the plan and on

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Speaker 1: paper it looks pretty good.