The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said it has resolved 98 per cent of the total service-related complaints received from telecoms consumers within 15 months. The period, according to the Commission, covers January 2019 to April 2020.
Besides this declaration, the Commission has reiterated its commitment to ensuring improvement in the Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) for the nation’s over 190 million telecom subscribers, even as the global community grapples with the challenges of containing the spread and management of COVID-19 pandemic.
According to a statement signed by the Commission’s Director of Public Affairs, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, the Commission, 26,169 complaints were received and managed by the Commission to the satisfaction of the overwhelming majority of telecom consumers in the period under review. “Of that number, 25,575, representing 98 percent of the total complaints received were expeditiously resolved,” the Commission stated.
“Many of the satisfied consumers reverted to either acknowledge the prompt resolution of their complaints or to thank the Commission for its intervention in service-related issues between them and their respective service providers.
“The complaints were received through all the Commission’s official channels of communication. These include 24,481 complaints received through Commission’s Contact Centres; 1,007 complaints received through the NCC Consumer Portal; and 296 others received as written complaints submitted at NCC Head Office in Abuja and the Commission’s five zonal offices in Lagos, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Kano and Ibadan,” NCC added.
The Commission said it also received complaints through its official email while 366 of the complaints were transmitted to the Commission through its social media handles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and the specially-dedicated Twitter handle for consumer issues. Also, 19 complaints were referred to the Commission during the period through the Twitter account of Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami.
Commenting on the report, the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of NCC, Prof, Umar Danbatta, said: “The Commission is pleased to find that consumers are increasingly accessing the numerous complaint channels instituted by the Commission to resolve second level complaints brought to its attention.”
The EVC said the NCC has emplaced all the channels to enable consumers to escalate to the Commission complaints earlier reported to their service providers that may not have been addressed promptly and/or satisfactorily.
“It is important to note that Commission’s actions in this regard is in congruence with NCC’s mandate to protect and defend the rights of the consumer, and to give concrete expression to its faith in the consumer as the lifeblood of the telecom sector, and therefore deserving of priority attention as enshrined in the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003,” Danbatta said.
He emphasised the Commission’s commitment to taking several steps, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, to continuously improve QoS both for voice and data services. According to him, such responsibility has become more imperative, given the outbreak of COVID-19 and the attendant necessities for containing the contagion, giving that telecom consumers, in their majority, have come to rely more on telecom services to cope with the restrictions to physical movement and close contacts.
Danbatta assured consumers of NCC’s readiness to sustain existing measures put in place to sustain improvement in QoS, to reduce incidents of complaints and to ensure the overall protection of the rights of the telecom consumer.
Add Comment