“These guidelines will seek to limit the ability of
licensees to take advantage of the weaker bargaining power of customers in
their dealings......Also, to the extent necessary, directives will be issued to
licensees to modify or remove clauses from their existing customer contracts
that are determined to contain unfair contract terms”
OUR (Office of
Utilities Regulation) commenting on the coming guidelines, limitations and
penalties for telecom providers when setting contracts for products and
services
Feeling cheated by your Telecom Provider? The OUR
(Office of Utilities Regulation) is here to Jamaicans customers rescue,
finally!!
They are currently recruiting consultant to help set
guidelines, limitations and penalties for telecom providers when setting
contracts for products and services as reported in the article “OUR
To Overhaul Terms Of Telecoms Customer Contracts”, published Wednesday
September 7, 2016, The Jamaica Gleaner.
The project will be divided into two (2) sections:
1. Assess
current customer contracts in the telecoms sector
2. Developing
guidelines for telecoms to guard against unfair contract terms
3. Develope
penalty regime for offences against the Telecommunications Act and regulations
made under the act
The consultant will examine existing legislation and
compare it to international best practice relative taking into consideration:
1. The
current service level agreements
2. General
terms and conditions of service other forms of contracts with customers
The OUR hopes to identify contracts with unfair and
unreasonable terms and eventually lay down guidelines, limitations and
penalties to guide telecom providers as to which terms and conditions are
unreasonable and are not allowed in customer contracts.
OUR
and Customer Contracts - Telecom Providers can introduce Remote Viewing to help
customers
This has become necessary as the Telecommunication
Act of 2012 does not specify what is considered unreasonable or unfair service.
But with the recent increase in complaint to the CAC
(Consumer Affairs Commission) since the Second Quarter of 2015, companies such
as FLOW Jamaica are facing a 74% increase in complaints as noted in my blog article
entitled “74
Percent increase in FLOW Jamaica problems to OUR - FLOW's infrastructure
problems as Digicel Fibre is coming”.
More recently, FLOW Jamaica has experienced an
islandwide outage when their entire Network, Mobile, Fixed line and Broadband
Network, went down between Friday September 2nd and Saturday
September 3rd 2016 as reported in my Geezam
blog article entitled “FLOW Jamaica
Network Outage due to 1 Million Satisfied Customers”.
FLOW Jamaica's customer contract currently states
that, rebates are only given if subscribers are without service for at least 72
hours. Given that most customers had service restored within 24 hours, rebates
were not necessary.
But the same level of service doesn’t apply to
Mobile customers, who often lose Data Services and Credit due to a lack of
knowledge about the settings on their smartphone as noted in my blog article
entitled “How
to stop FLOW Jamaica or Digicel smartphone using your Mobile Data and Credit”.
So what can be done to fix Customer Contracts?
How
to improve Customer Contracts - FLOW Lend, Mobile Money and Remote Login
So changes need to implemented as it relates to how
quickly service are restored and penalties against the company, such as rebates,
can be applied.
The same need to be done with Mobile and the loss of
Data Services and Credit, with customer getting full compensation once they can
prove their claim instead of being told what they did wrong.
In the case of FLOW Jamaica, this can be in the form
of FLOW Lend Credit for the customer as described in my Geezam blog article entitled “FLOW Jamaica launches FLOW Lend so you can
borrow Voucher Credit”
FLOW Lend credit can be given away by Customer Care
Agents when they call in, are fully registered and verified using the
following:
1. Full
Name
2. Address
3. Date
of Birth
4. GOJ
ID i.e. Driver’s License, Passport and Voter’s ID
This idea of given the customer bonus credit is similar
to the way that Amazon gives Coupons away as compensation so that customers can
use it towards purchasing something else on their website.
To make this possible, there needs to be a drive to
increase registration of new subscribers with a FLOW ID as argued in my Geezam blog article entitled “FLOW Jamaica FAM Postpaid
needs FLOW ID, My FLOW App and Mobile Money”.
This can be achieved by giving away a product or
service for free in exchange for customer becoming fully registered and receiving
a FLOW ID, making it easier for them to receive compensation and rebates for
service lost.
Customer, now armed with their FLOW ID, can now be
encouraged to sign up to the My FLOW App. The My FLOW App enable them to check
their mobile balances and pay for their postpaid services.
It could also be enabled to allow Customer Care
Agents to remotely access the phone and fix problems on the smartphone. This
would be possible once they’re near to any FLOW Horizon Wi-Fi or other Wi-Fi or
simply have activated a Data plan on their smartphone.
Purchasing credit should be easier, with FLOW
Jamaica integrating the API for CONEC Mobile and NCB Quisk as described in my blog article
entitled “How
NCB Quisk Compares to CONEC Mobile Wallet as Jamaica goes Cashless” into
their My FLOW App.
FLOW
Jamaica Scenario – How do deal with a customer who has lost Credit
So let’s consider a scenario!
In the case where the Customer Care Agent encounters
has a fully registered customer with FLOW ID (or Digicel ID??), they would at
their discretion, offer the caller one of two (2) options as compensation:
1. Bonus
Credit to make FLOW to FLOW calls
2. FLOW
Lend credit that can do anything but you have to pay it back.
For my example, I’ll be focusing on FLOW Jamaica,
since I know them pretty well as pointed out in my blog article
entitled “How
to find work in Jamaica at Call Centers - A Brief Listing of Call Center Job
Openings in New Kingston”!
If the customer lost more than JA$475 the maximum
for FLOW Lend, or is refusing to take any of these options, then FLOW will have
to give the person their credit back. However, this would be on the promise
that they visit a FLOW Store to have the My FLOW App installed before they can
get back their credit.
Once the FLOW Store technician installed the My FLOW
App, they would get back their credit in full. The installed My FLOW App would
then be set to monitor the customer and track their actions on their Smartphone.
This would help create a forensic profile of the
customer that would be sent to FLOW Jamaica and would not count against their
data. The data captured could be used in the second instance that the customer
loses credit to prove whether or not FLOW is culpable and has to compensate
them for their loss.
It would also
help to identify the real root cause of what causes the phones to use off the customer
Data Plan and Credit. This will make it easier to educate the customer and
recommend settings to them as it relates to their data usage and management of
their smartphone.
FLOW Jamaica benefits as it would make the company
appear fairer in the eyes of the customer. It would also make it possible for
them to comply with the coming OUR guidelines, limitations and penalties for
telecom providers when setting contracts for products and services.
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