CRTC serves notice to carriers with wait-period ban

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s announcement Thursday it was ordering telecom carriers to abolish their practice of forcing consumers to provide 30-days notice before cancelling their phone, Internet or television services sends, a clear message that customer service practices still need improvement.

Josh Tabish, Campaigns Manager for OpenMedia.ca, said in a statement that the announcement, the first following the regulator’s Let’s Talk TV meetings in Gatineau, Que. last September, is a positive step forward.

“During the consultation, we spoke with thousands of Canadians who expressed their dissatisfaction with the lack of choice and flexibility in offerings from the Big Telecom providers,” he said. “But now we’re able to move between service providers more easily without being penalized.”

A good start, but more needed

Tabish called the CRTC’s move, which takes effect Jan. 23, 2015 and follows a similar ban on 30-day cancellation waiting periods for wireless services that went into effect last December, “a significant step forward, but the CRTC still needs to take bold steps to ensure all Canadians can access a wider range of affordable independent options for telecom and media services.”

The decision will give consumers additional leverage as they consider their options in an increasingly complex telecom services market. Not having to wait 30 days puts additional pressure on carriers to improve their customer service by moving faster and more decisively to retain customers who are either dissatisfied with their current services or who find themselves leaning toward a competitor’s offerings. It gives consumers the flexibility to take advantage of near-term offers and avoid double-billing when contracts overlap.

The regulator’s latest decision also opens the door for additional rule changes designed to tilt the playing field back in favour of consumers who have long complained about questionable billing practices, unfair pricing and substandard customer service.

The Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS) this week released its annual report that suggested things may be improving slightly, but the industry still has a long way to go to clean up its act. The CCTS received 11,340 complaints from Canadian consumers in the year ending this past July, down 17 per cent from 13,692 recorded in the year-earlier period, but still the second-highest tally in the last five years.

Not all positive

While the decline was the first one ever recorded in the seven years the CCTS has been tracking the data, a deeper dive into the figures highlights a spike by 74 per cent - to 1,686 - in complaints over misleading contract terms.

The implementation of the Wireless Code last December required carriers to simplify their often-complex telecom contracts, but it still remains the second most popular thorn in consumers’ sides, after billing errors. As the new rules were only in effect for eight months of the CCTS’s reporting period, next year’s report should provide the first full-year snapshot of the Code’s impact on contract-related complaints.

The other provisions of the Wireless Code - including allowing customers to return devices within 15 days, automatic unlocking at purchase of purchased devices, and caps on international roaming and data overage fees - hint at what might come next from the CRTC as it works its way through the input received during September’s hearings and updates Canada’s telecom playbook.

More change ahead

Expect the CRTC to push carriers to further loosen their grip on bundled packages of television channels - which forces consumers to pay for content they don’t want. New rules for over-the-top services like Netflix, the Rogers/Shaw shomi offering and Bell’s just-announced Project Latte could accelerate the shift from traditional cable- and satellite-distributed television offerings toward online, on-demand services. While wireless service didn’t figure into this week’s rule change, expect further decisions to address unfair billing practices and rate increases that continue to trend well above inflation.

The CRTC’s decision to abolish the 30-day waiting period puts carriers under the gun to raise their customer service game. They may grumble over the need to accelerate already-planned improvements to customer service, but the resulting positive impact in reducing customer churn rate will flow to the bottom line in due course. The regulator has served notice that if the megacarriers aren’t going to push the service-improvement agenda, it’s more than happy to assume the role of industry change agent.