By Angela Nkwocha
The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, has said that ninety eight per cent (98%) of the total service-related complaints received from telecoms consumers within a 15-month period, spanning January 2019 to April 2020, have been successfully resolved.
A statement from it’s Director of Public Affairs, Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, says 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 the Commission, in the period under review, 26,169 complaints were received and managed by the Commission to the satisfaction of the overwhelming majority of telecom consumers. Of that number, 25,575, representing 98 percent of the total complaints received were expeditiously resolved.
According to Adinde 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 at the Commission’s five zonal offices in Lagos, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Kano and Ibadan.
“Complaints also reached the Commission through its official email (ncc@ncc.gov.ng) 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 (@ConsumersNCC). Also, 19 complaints were also referred to the Commission during the period through the Twitter account of Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami”.
According to the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof, Umar Danbatta, “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.
The NCC boss restated the Commission’s commitment to taking several steps, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, to continuously improve QoS both for voice and data services. He averred that the Commission has also geared up efforts in view of the outbreak of COVID-19 and the attendant necessities for containing the contagion, to aid cope with the restrictions to physical movement and close contacts.
The NCC boss as averred that measures have been put in place to ensure quality of service.
“Such measures include monthly engagement sessions with operators on QoS; quarterly QoS Industry Working Group (IWG) meetings on QoS; continuous engagement with the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) on Right of Way (RoW) issue; regular publication of QoS performance data on the Commission’s website; instituting benchmarking drive test across the country to measure performance of each operator; establishing new QoS measurement mechanisms for assessing operators’ performance across all states of the Federation, among others,” Danbatta emphasised.
The EVC assured telecom consumers of its readiness to address every challenge stifling robust delivery of telecom services, and he urged that: “telecom consumers should continue to report challenges about quality of service, first with their service providers, and if not satisfied with the handling of the complaints by service providers, the consumer may then escalate the matter to the Commission.
