New figures from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) reveal that more telco customers are turning to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) to resolve complaints with their service providers.
The 2024-25 telco complaints report shows that the proportion of complaints escalated to the TIO rose to 6.6 per cent, up from 6.1 per cent in 2023-24.
ACMA member Samantha Yorke said the industry has been letting the Ombudsman do too much of the heavy lifting on matters that ultimately should be fixed by the telco.
"The trend is a higher reliance on the TIO to resolve issues between customers and providers.
"While we appreciate that telecommunications networks are complex and faults or delays are going to happen, telcos need to take greater responsibility to address complaints before they get to the point where the TIO has to intervene," Ms Yorke said.
Overall, the report showed 838,767 complaints in the 2024-25 financial year, a decrease of 6.8 per cent from 2023-24.
The data also showed it took on average of 5.9 days for telcos to resolve complaints, an increase from 5.8 days in the previous year.
"While there are some positives, such as a reduction in the number of complaints reported, there are still signs that telcos are not taking customer complaints seriously enough.
"We are closely monitoring the time taken to resolve complaints after seeing it spike above the six-day mark in both the December and March quarters.
"It is also disappointing that more than one in four providers averaged eight days or longer to resolve complaints. Consumers deserve timely, effective solutions without having to escalate," Ms Yorke said.
The full telco complaints report 2024-25 contains customer complaints data for the 38 largest Australian telcos by services supplied and has been published on the ACMA website.
