CRTC chairman fires warning shot about customer service issues

TORONTO — During a speech at an industry conference Monday, CRTC chairman Ian Scott told telecom companies they must “do better” when it comes to customer sales, following a CRTC report in February that found there is an unacceptable degree of misleading and aggressive retail sales practices. Scott said at the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto that if companies violate CRTC rules, they risk the regulator exercising its full enforcement powers. In an interview with The Wire Report following the speech, Scott said telecoms should “treat customers with respect. They want to be treated with respect. They want to know that the person they’re dealing with, whether on the phone, in person or on the web, is trustworthy.” When asked how the CRTC will determine whether the telecoms have done enough to address the problem, Scott pointed to the February report on sales practices. He noted that in addition to the upcoming code for internet service providers “there are other follow-on activities that we mentioned in the report.” Those include plans to consider requiring service providers to give pre-sales quotes and trial periods customers can cancel if the service is not what they expected, and creating a new standard requiring providers to make sure offers and promotions line-up with their customers’ needs. The report also proposed to expand the mandate of the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services (CCTS) to include handling complaints about retail sales pressure tactics and increase its data-collection. “Work is underway and will continue on a number of those fronts, and as those decisions are rendered, we’ll have requirements. So you can expect that will have to file things,” he said. Scott noted that the CRTC won’t only rely on telecoms’ self-reporting, but will launch a secret shopper program, which he said the regulator is “working very hard to get ... deployed as quickly as possible.” Scott declined to offer any details about which of that report’s elements might be the first to be implemented, or a time frame in which that could happen. When will telecoms know they’ve done enough? “I guess when this stops being an issue,” he responded. “When consumers aren’t complaining and identifying these kinds of practices as being commonplace.” In his speech, Scott also said he was “troubled” by the industry-wide practice of charging for completing some customer service tasks that’s recently drawn attention. BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Telus Corp., and Shaw Communications Inc. all told the CRTC in May that they charge customers of at least some of their brands between $2 and $10 to complete some tasks through a customer service representative that they could otherwise do themselves online. Scott said the proceeding the CRTC is holding on the issue will determine which or if any of those fees violate the Wireless Code. “If you will, it was a word of warning to the industry to say ‘is that really what you want to do?” Scott that there are some cases in which the fees are “completely justified” but that he has “already seen some examples where it strikes me as a problem.” He added the warning wasn’t about a process or what the CRTC might do, but about that consumers “are already ticked off” at telecoms. In his speech, Scott also announced the CRTC would be issuing its code of conduct for internet service providers soon. A number of consumer groups boycotted that proceeding because they said the CRTC didn’t give them enough time to comment. Scott defended the deadlines of that process in the interview Monday. “The deadlines were consistent with that we did, for example, on the TV code, and my preoccupation, the commission’s preoccupation was to get the internet code in place as soon as possible to help Canadians. Not to elongate a process by months which could have subsequently run into the election writ period,” he said. “We had participation by a wide range of individual Canadians and consumers. We used every vehicle available to us to ensure we had a fulsome record. And I am satisfied we have one and the code is in good shape and will be issued shortly.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca

CRTC chairman fires warning shot about customer service issues

News | June 3, 2019

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CRTC chairman fires warning shot about customer service issues

News | June 3, 2019

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