{"id":279405,"date":"2018-10-26T16:12:14","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T14:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=279405"},"modified":"2018-10-29T08:19:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T06:19:40","slug":"complaints-against-sa-telecom-companies-are-starting-to-stack-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/279405\/complaints-against-sa-telecom-companies-are-starting-to-stack-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Complaints against SA telecom companies are starting to stack up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Readers of MyBroadband and BusinessTech will be aware of the struggles of cancelling a\u00a0Telkom account\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>or dealing with ‘disappearing’ airtime<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

While these issues are not necessarily new,\u00a0Ask Afrika’s recent\u00a0Orange Index Awards\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>show that the slip in customer service from South Africa’s telecommunications companies is starting to become more obvious.<\/p>\n

Speaking to BusinessTech, Ask Afrika said that service levels have decreased across the internet service provider, telecommunications and financial institution industries.<\/p>\n

“Telecommunications was previously one of the top two performing industries, but has consistently been replaced by the food retail, automotive and clothing retail industries,” the group said.<\/p>\n

“Although customers are deriving less emotional satisfaction from their interactions with these three industries, this aspect has decreased drastically in the telecommunication space,” it said.<\/p>\n

Ask Afrika noted that, compared to other industries, customer loyalty is influenced by different dimensions within the telecommunications and ISP space.<\/p>\n

“Telecommunications companies should firstly focus on delivering a fair service to its customers, while also delivering on basic service dimensions and reducing the amount effort a customer has to put in when interacting with these companies,” it said.<\/p>\n

“Within the ISP industry customer loyalty is mostly influenced by basic service delivery, followed by trusting the organisation and the emotional impact the interaction had on the customer.”<\/p>\n

Companies are not getting the basics right<\/strong><\/p>\n

While South Africa’s telecommunication companies are a standout concern, the data shows that customer service has seen a general decline across South Africa.<\/p>\n

According to a recent SuperOffice<\/a> <\/strong>Benchmark report, 92% of customers indicated they would stop purchasing from a company after three or fewer poor customer-service experiences.<\/p>\n

It noted that customers expect zero repeats – which means that first-call resolution is more important than ever before – but they also want personalised service and don\u2019t want to be ‘case numbers’.<\/p>\n

This is is also clear from the Customer Service Benchmark Report 2018, which found that:<\/p>\n