Customer care agents are insensitive –GSM subscribers

    
Subscribers have said they are facing tough times in the hands of customer care agents of telecommunications companies in the country.

A survey conducted on the official Facebook page of the Nigeria Communications Commission highlighted the frustration of many Nigerians in the hands of customer care representatives of the major Global System of Mobile communication service providers.  In the survey, the NCC asked, “How does the customer care agents of your service providers attend to you when you call in for complaints? Are your complaints followed through and resolved? Share your comments and experiences please.”

Nearly all the 34 respondents that participated in the survey bitterly lamented the negative attitude of the agents and their inability to promptly respond to complaints.

Some of them said they stopped contacting the dedicated customer care lines because their complaints were often ignored.

A respondent, Anne Uruegi-Agi, said that each time she tried to link up with a customer care representative on the telephone, she was made to “go through hell”. Instead of the voice of a customer care agent, what she always heard on the line was the sound of a jingle advertising a product (or more).

Uruegi-Agi said the promos usually lasted several minutes, while she waited to be routed to a customer care agent.

“They take too long to answer phone calls from customers. Sometimes the delay drags for about 45 minutes, while they keep running the promos. It’s really frustrating!,” she said.

Another respondent, Joseph Eyo, said that each time he tried to find a solution to service-related problems, his phone calls were hardly answered by the customer care agents.

“Do they even take your call at all, needless to talk of resolving issues that arise on daily basis? They spend more time on advertisement nowadays, rather than improve the quality of service. This is not good at all,” Eyo added.

Also, Unyimeobong George queried the competence of the customer care agents of his service provider. He said that even when he was lucky enough to connect with one of them on the telephone, his problems remained unsolved.

“It takes them an eternity to answer my calls. And when they do, they always ask me to ‘call back later.’ At the end of the day, subsequent calls as directed by them won’t even be answered,” George said.

Nonso Odo’s grouse is the manner in which some customer care agents of his GSM service provider address him each time he complains about the quality of service rendered. He said the NCC needed to compel the telecommunications companies to treat their customers with courtesy.

“They steal my money every day, whether I make calls or not. I am tired of calling them to rectify this problem. The last time I called to lodge a complaint, the customer care agent on duty insulted me,” Odo said.

But Adeola Adebajo, who expressed concern over the attitude of the customer care agents, said she might seek legal advice on the specifics of instituting a suit against the companies.

“Sometimes getting connected to a customer care agent can be really frustrating. There should be a suit that one can file against these GSM service providers. We should wake up and make one of them an example,” she said.

But the NCC has said that subscribers who are unable to reach their service providers on the telephone should endeavour to contact them through other means.

The country’s telecoms industry regulator, in a message on its Facebook page, stated that subscribers could also contact them via their social media accounts, especially Facebook and Twitter, to resolve service-related issues.

In the message titled ‘Consumer complaint procedures’, the commission said, “The NCC wishes to educate telecoms subscribers about procedures and required steps for lodging complaints. First, contact your network operator via the call centre, help-line, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, SMS or walk into your service providers help centre or shop about the issue and lodge your complaint.

“Wait for the resolution time given by the service provider to elapse. If the complaint is unresolved or the customer is dissatisfied with the resolution, then contact the NCC via consumerportal@ncc.gov.ng.”

Copyright PUNCH.