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The Commerce Commission says retail telecoms service will be one of its priorities for the next year.

While the telecommunications industry gets more than its fair share of political and regulatory scrutiny, there is unfinished business.

The Commerce Commission's timing makes sense. The first phase of the UFB fibre build finishes over the next 12 months.

Soon after that, the pre-5G mobile jockeying will start in earnest. Spark is already making noises about moving to 5G.

In a media statement, the commission says it has "been working to improve its understanding of the retail telco issues faced by consumers".

Service quality

This year the commission says it intends to monitor areas of service quality including billing, contract terms, marketing and switching between service providers.

The media statement says:

“We also expect to implement new consumer provisions from amendments to the Telecommunications Act, including industry codes to address issues of retail service quality.”

This is in addition to work the Commerce Commission is already doing on the implications of competition and regulation in mobile and fixed line services.

Are we being served

Service quality is something of a black hole in the telecommunications sector.

Improved service quality was one of the objectives of the 2009 reforms. It was just as big an issue then.

At the time Telecom NZ divided into what is now Spark and Chorus.

The planners thought telcos would compete on service quality after the industry separated into wholesale and retail layers. Instead they raced to the bottom on price.

Few if any telco's offer a high service quality option today. Consumers are free to choose between various levels of indifferent service. They range from near-hostile to grudging customer support.

Little or no service

This has lead to a curious state of affairs.

Telcos offering less formal customer service rank higher in consumer preference surveys.

Spark's low-cost Skinny brand often rates as delivering better service.

Skinny doesn't have a traditional call centre. Instead it handles everything online.

Not offering much customer service, means Skinny customers don't expect much. Their illusions are never shattered.

Of course Skinny targets a particular demographic: mainly young tech-savvy people looking for a bargain.

It's a market that prefers not to use call centres. Moreover, younger New Zealanders have no recollection of a time when support seemed better.

Agile to the rescue?

Spark is moving to a new Agile way of working. Liam Dann has a great feature on Spark's Agile project in The New Zealand Herald.).

Agile was originally a manifesto for software developers. One of Agile's ideas is a focus on satisfying customers.

In the case of software developers, customer usually means whoever pays the bill. It can be an external client. It can also be another division of the same organisation. Consumers are rarely customers in this sense.

It isn't clear if Spark version of Agile means satisfying consumers. Some of the rhetoric to leak suggests it is. If so, it'll be interesting to see how this works. It'll also be interesting to see if it satisfies the Commerce Commission.

Other service issues

The Commerce Commission is also looking at contract terms, marketing and switching.

Switching between providers is now easy. At least in theory. Number portability makes it simple for mobile customers. For fibre customers, switching involves little more than a click of a mouse button on a dashboard.

However, telcos like to tie customers into long contracts. This makes switching harder. In their language this is called customer churn.

Some telcos, Trustpower is an example, offer televisions or fridges to people signing longer terms.

Others, offer the lure of a low starting price for a few months. The small print says customers then pay more for the remainder of, say, a 24 month term.

These deals can end up more expensive that no-contract subscriptions.

Break clause

While most contracts are legal, they're heavily weighted in favour of the telco. Some have expensive break clauses.

It can be hard to find a service from a name brand that doesn't come with contract strings attached. This often means angst when customer circumstances change.

Many of the problems with marketing are linked to contracts. It's rare for many months to pass without another telco pushing the boundaries of responsible marketing.

Both contracts and dodgy marketing remain regular issues for Telecommunications Dispute Resolution. There's a clear need to beef up protections in these areas. The Commerce Commission is right to worry about them.

Service quality needs Commerce Commission scrutiny was first posted at billbennett.co.nz.

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