Who is Australia’s worst telco?
Optus has fallen hard and fast out of Aussie customers’ good graces, with a report from the Ombudsman reporting a staggering 35 per cent in complaint increases from the last financial year about the telco.
Optus Group, which is who the complaints were about, also includes Virgin. The Ombudsman received 40,665 complaints about Optus Group over the last financial year, which is a large spike from 30,120 in the 2016-2017 financial year.
Ombudsman Judi Jones said to news.com.au that there were no standout complaints, as issues rose for the telco “across the board”.
“We’ve been working with Optus over the course of the year and they have received data from us regularly and have been working hard to address customer complaints,” Ms Jones said.
Almost 18,000 complaints were related to mobile phone services, with issues ranging from connection troubles to missed appointments relating to the National Broadband Network (NBN).
Although it might look bad for Optus, they’re not alone in an increase in customer complaints. Telstra received 85,500 customer complaints, which is an increase of 7.7 per cent from last financial year.
Ms Jones said that the reason Telstra attracts so many complaints is that “they’re a much larger provider than other telcos”.
Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) chief Teresa Corbin said that this continues to be a problem for Aussie telcos.
“We believe that the government directed introduction of the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s new complaint handling standard and record keeping rules for NBN services contributed to this trend,” Ms Corbin said.
Have you made a complaint about an Aussie telco? Let us know in the comments.