Ofcom Publish Latest UK Telecoms Complaints Data to January 2013

The UK communications regulator, Ofcom, has today published its latest telecoms complaints bulletin to January 2013. Overall complaint levels have fallen and saw a fairly typical Christmas dip in December, although worryingly the number of consumers complaining about how ISPs actually handle their gripes has continued to grow.

Ofcom doesn’t typically investigate individual consumer complaints, such as those which concern broadband or phone problems (this is a matter for the ISP or an Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme like CISAS), although they do monitor the data for particular trends and this can be used to help inform future policy decisions or to take enforcement action against specific ISPs.

Just to clarify, “complaints handling” refers to how ISPs and telephone providers have handled consumer problems, such as the amount of time you have to queue on the phone, failed responses to letters or emails and the quality of staff; among other things. Sadly there’s not enough detail in this report to show where the major gripes about handling are coming from.

Ofcoms UK Telecoms Complaints Bulletin for January 2013 (PDF)
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/../Telecoms_Complaints_feb13.pdf